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THE CRITIC 
IN THE OCCIDENT 




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THE CRITIC 
IN THE OCCIDENT 



GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH 

AUTHOR OF 

"COMFORT FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS" 

"MODERN ENGLISH BOOKS OF POWER" 

"THE CRITIC IN THE ORIENT" 



As the Spanish proverb says: 

"He iv ho would bring home the 

•wealth of the Indies must carry the 

•wealth of the Indies •with him.'" So it 

is in traveling; a man must carry 

knowledge •with him if he •would 

bring home knowledge — 

Bos-well's Life of 

Johnson 



ILLUSTRATED 

FROM 
PHOTOGRAPHS 



PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS • SAN FRANCISCO 



Copyright, IQIJ 
by Paul Elder and Company ,y VQ ; 

Most of the Chapters of 

This Book Appeared Originally in the 

Sunday Supplement of the San Francisco Chronicle. 

The Privilege of Reproducing Them 

Here is Due to the Courtesy of 

M. H. de Young, Esq. 



S 



g&e 



0&.A354642 



^/ 



TO THOSE WHO ARE ONLY ABLE 
TO TRAVEL BY PROXY, THESE IMPRES- 
SIONS OF EUROPE ARE DEDICATED, 
WITH THE HOPE THAT THEY 
MAY YIELD PLEASURE 
AND PROFIT 



Contents 



Page 



Introduction ix 

The Best Fruits of Travel in the Occident . . . xin 

Greece, the Fountainhead of all Art and Letters . . i 
Aden at the Gateway of the Red Sea-Steaming Through 
the Suez Canal-Sailing Among the Historic Isles of 
Greece-The Acropolis and The Parthenon of Athens- 
Remains of Ancient Art in Athens. 

Italy, Home of Art and Monuments , . . . .33 
Naples and Its Treasures of Art-Scenes in Gay and 
Noisy Naples -Ancient Roman Life as Seen in Pompeii- 
Romance and Beauty of Roman Ruins-Art in St. Peter's 
and the Vatican— The Colosseum and Along the Ap- 
pian Way— Hadrian's Tomb and His Villa at Tivoli— 
Florence and Its Many Art Treasures- Venice, City of 
Romance and Beauty. 

France, Land of Romance, Thrift and Artistic Life . 93 
Monte Carlo and Its Gilded Gambling Palace- Paris, 
the City of Magnificent Vistas- Rich Art Treasures of 
the Louvre— Churches and Monuments of Paris— Some 
of the Famous Museums of Paris. 

London, Seat of the Founders of World-Wide Empire . 121 
London, Huge, Smoke-Begrimed and Impressive— St. 
Paul's and Westminster Abbey — History Seen in the 
Tower of London— A Famous Debate in the Commons — 
The British Museum and Picture Galleries— Literary 
Shrines and Haunts in London. 

New York, the Skyscraping Marvel of the New World 149 
Impressions of New York After Seven Years— Barbaric 
Display of Wealth on Fifth Avenue — New York's Big 
Museum, Free Library and Many Parks. 

Tips to the Tourist 165 

Hints for Seeing Things and Buying Things That May 
Help the Traveler. 

Bibliography 169 

Books Which Throw Light on the History, Art and 
People of European Countries. 

Index . 174 



M 



Illustrations 



A Street in Pompeii Frontispiece 

Statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, at Port Said . . Facing 
The Portico of" the Temple of Pallas Athena at Athens 
The Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum 
Michelangelo's Heroic Statue of the Young David . 

The Tomb of Napoleon 

The Winged Victory of Samothrace .... 
The Chapel of Henry Vll, Westminster Abbey, London 
The Main Facade of Westminster Abbey 
Looking Down Lower Broadway, New York . 

Plates 

Greece ....... Following page 3 2 

The Large Arab City Back of Aden .... 

A Steamer Passing Along the Suez Canal . 

Eastern Entrance to the Canal at Suez . 

The City and Harbor of Corfu ..... 

One of the Walks in the Grounds of the Achilleon 
The Main Facade of the Parthenon .... 

General View of Athens With Entrance to Stadium 

The Theater of Dionysius 

The Thesion, Best Preserved Greek Temple, Athens 

The Graceful Arch Erected by Emperor Hadrian 

The Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis . . 

A Distant View of the Acropolis 

The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates .... 
Great Stadium at Athens Seen During Olympian Games 
Statuette of the Figure of Athena by Phidias . 
The "Three Fates" From the Parthenon . 

Italy ....... Following page 92 

General View of Naples and Its Beautiful Harbor 
Remains of the Forum in Pompeii ..... 

The Castle of St. Angelo, Rome .... 

General View of the Roman Forum .... 

The Fountain of Trevi ....... 

St. Peter's at Rome 

One of the Galleries of Statuary in the Vatican . 
Monument to Three Stuarts in St. Peter's . 
The Great Cypresses in the Villa d'Este 



Page ^ 
I 2- 
26- 
S 6 

jo- 

I08 
I 14 
128 
I42 
I56 



Plate 

I " 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

XI 

XII 

XIII 

XIV 

XV 

XVI 

XVII 

XVIII 

XIX 

XX 

XXI 

XXII 

XXIII 

XXIV 

XXV 



[v„] 



Plates 

Plate 

The Interior of the Roman Colosseum . . . xxvi- 

The Ruins of the Colosseum . . ... xxvn 

Pifturesque Medieval Houses on the Bank of the Arno xxvm 

The Square ot St. Mark, Venice .... xxix 

The Palace of th" Doges and Little Square of St. Mark xxx 

Ca d'Oro or House of Gold . xxxi 

The Historic Bridge of Sighs xxxii 

France Following page I 20 

A Characteristic View on the French Riviera . . xxxm 

The Boulevard des Anglais, Main Promenade of Nice xxxiv 

In the Grounds of the Palace of Versailles, near Paris . xxxv 

Main Gambling Hall at Monte Carlo . . . xxxvi 

Avenue des Champs-Elysees, Paris xxxvn 

Church and Boulevard of the Madeleine . . . xxxvm 

Place de la Concorde ........ xxxix 

Gallery of Apollo, Finest Room in the Louvre . . xl 

The Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens .... XLi' 

Monument to Gambetta, in the Square of the Louvre xlh 

Dome of the Invalides xlih 

Death Mask of Napoleon xnv 

Arc de Triomphe, in the Place de l'Etoile . . . xlv 

Cathedral of Notre Dame ...... xlvi , 

Main Staircase of the Grand Opera House . . . xlvii 

The Palais Royal xlviii 

London Following page 1 48 

Mansion House and Cheapside xlix 

On the Thames Embankment ...... L 

English Parliament Buildings and Westminster Bridge u 

Trafalgar Square ......... lh 

In the British House of Commons .... lih 

The " Old Curiosity Shop" of Dickens .... liv 

Carlyle's House in Cheyne Row, Chelsea ... lv 

The Garden of Carlyle's House lvi 

New York Following page 162 

Brooklyn Bridge, From the East Side .... lvii 

The Woolworth Building Lvm 

Main Waiting-room of Pennsvlvania Railroad Station Lix 

Looking South on Broadway ... ... lx 

New York Public Library at Night .... lxi 

Wall Street, Looking Toward Trinity Church . . lxii 

New Municipal Building lxih 

Sky-line of Lower New York lxiv 



[vm] 



Introduction 

ZlKE"The Critic in the Orient" this is a record of 
t impressions. Here will be found my impressions of 
the last half of a seven months' tour around the world. 
What other observers saw and what they thought 
had little influence with me, except in the case of the 
old masters in painting. For the piclures of those who 
tried to put their religious aspirations on canvas in the 
Renaissance of Italy, I could summon little enthusiasm. 
A few of these piclures had the dewy freshness that is 
found in the pages of old Thomas a Kempis; but the 
great mass of them— covering acres of the galleries of 
Europe— awoke no spiritual response. Yet of the great 
piclures I never tired, and again and again 1 spent 
hours before them until I could flash them up on that 
li inward eye" and thus make them a part of my mental 
possessions, like great poems or splendid music. 

The Vatican, the Pitti and the Uffizi, the Louvre 
and the Luxembourg, the National, Tate and Wallace- 
all these have miles on miles of paintings that one 
never cares to see a second time; but each of these col- 
lections has a few really great piclures, which give one 
pleasure for the rest of his life. The famous statues of 
the world may be studied with some satisfaction from 
large photographs, but the great piclures must be seen 
in the originals— no copies, no photographs give any ade- 
quate idea of the spirit of the artist, that bridges all 
the years and speaks to the sympathetic mind like a real 
voice across the centuries. 

The greatest things Europe had to offer me were 
the Parthenon, the Colosseum and the ruins of Pom- 
peii, the tomb of Napoleon, and the statue of Crom- 
well in the shadow of the English Parliament buildings. 

fix] 



Introduction 

The Parthenon represents the p erf eel measure, the 
love of beauty and the religious aspirations of the an- 
cient Greek, the supreme expression of art and patriot- 
ism, the greatest monument ever reared to the genius of 
a nation. 

The Roman Colosseum and Pompeii, revealing di- 
verse traits of Roman charatler, reproduced for me the 
tread of Rome s invincible legions more perfeclly than 
the ruins of the Forum or the tomb of Hadrian; these 
four summed up law, conquest, government, the building 
of the greatest empire the world has ever seen. 

From boyhood one of my hobbies was to read every- 
thing on Napoleon; so when I stood under the dome of 
the Invalides and looked down on the bier of the great 
conqueror, surrounded by faded and shot-torn battle- 
flags, it seemed as though here brooded in very truth 
the unquenchable spirit of the man who was the fore- 
most warrior and administrator of the modern world. 

London has a powerful appeal to the American, 
but beyond everything else the figure of dour old Oliver 
Cromwell, with his iron jaw and grim unyielding mouth, 
dominates the imagination. It represents the unquestion- 
ing religious faith, the ingrained honesty, the passion 
for governing, the genius for material conquest, that has 
made England the greatest world-power of the last 
hundred years. 

The discomforts, the annoyances of travel soon pass, 
but what the wise tourist holds fast is these great 
things which typify the spiritual aspirations of the var- 
ious peoples. And when he returns to his own country 
and catches the first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, 
he feels that here is the land of opportunity, which has 
shown the toilers of the Old IVorld a new test of man- 
hood, a new measure of efficiency— a refuge where a 
man is free to work out his own salvation, hampered 
by no manacles of family, caste, creed or condition. 

M 



The Best 

Fruits of Travel in 

the Occident 



The Best 

Fruits of Travel in 

the Occident 



/'N u The Critic in the Orient" a companion volume 
to this, I have set down my impressions of the first 
half of a voyage around the world. 'That book includes 
sketches of Japan, Manila, Canton, Hongkong, Singa- 
pore, Rangoon, India and Egypt. In this second vol- 
ume I have tried to reproduce my impressions of some 
of the most interesting places in Europe. Unusual cold 
barred me from Switzerland and Germany, but I was 
fortunate in seeing Italy very thoroughly, and Italy 
holds the same place in Europe as India in the Orient— 
the land richest in art, architeclure and a storied past. 
What you bring away with you from a tour of 
Europe, depends largely upon your reading. If through 
great writers you know intimately the history, art and 
architeclure of a country, you will find that your travels 
serve mainly to stamp indelibly upon the memory many 
of the impressions formed from the books you have read. 
Even the best guide books are unsatisfaclory: they give 
merely the skeleton of history and art which your read- 
ing must transform into flesh and blood, or you lose the 
best part of the fruits of travel. The wider your read- 
ing, especially of poetry and romance, the richer will be 
your recolleclions of historic places. 

Americans are too apt to neglecl this reading, which 
forms a vital part of the education of the European. 
Historic palaces, storied temples, famous paintings, im- 
mortal statues awake in their minds no echoes of the 
words of the great writers who have pictured them 

[xm] 



The Best Fruits of Travel in the Occident 

for all generations. Hence they lose that per f eft blend- 
ing of romance and reality , as one does who listens to a 
great opera of which he knows neither the words nor 
the story. 

My plan was to prepare a schedule of the places to 
see in each city in the order of their interest. This 
schedule I followed diligently, and if time did not per- 
mit me to complete it I had the satisfaction of knowing 
that no place of first importance had been missed. 'The 
artistic, historical and literary shrines were those 
which appealed to me the most strongly. My time did 
not permit of a study of education, charity, civic prob- 
lems and other subjects of living interest. 

Most of these chapters were written on the spot, 
when my impressions were sharp and clear, but those 
on Monte Carlo and Literary Shrines of London have 
not appeared in print before. All the chapters have 
been revised and in many cases partly rewritten, as the 
perspective of time compels changes. The effort has 
been made here, as in my previous book, to give the 
reader at home as faithful and as vivid a pitlure as 
possible of these strange lands and peoples. 

Attual contatl with people works many changes in 
one's views. From my reading I never had any fond- 
ness for the Latin races; yet when I saw the Italians 
and the French at home I found in each race many fine 
qualities that I had missed in my study of books. 

The illustrations, which I have tried to selecl from 
unhackneyed photographs, have been massed at the end 
of each division of the book, as it seems to me that this 
arrangement makes a stronger impression on the mind 
than the usual method of scattering them through the 
text. Each pitlure has been given a very full descrip- 
tive caption, thus adding to its interest. In every way 
I have labored to make this book appeal to the eye as 
well as to the mind. 

[xiv] 



The Best Fruits of Travel in the Occident 

The trip through the Suez Canal has been included 
because of the strong interest of Americans in the 
greater canal at Panama. A comparison of these two 
ditches of commerce would be as futile as to compare 
one of the great locomotives that hauls a train over the 
Sierra Nevada with the crude railroad engine of thirty 
years ago. The towering monoliths of concrete , the tre- 
mendous Gatun locks with their massive steel gates— 
these are lacking at Suez, yet the Panama Canal will 
be fortunate if it proves financially as successful as the 
canal which the genius of De Lesseps made possible. 

Athens is not usually included in a European tour, 
mainly because of the poor arrangements for travel in 
Greece; but one misses much who does not see this city, 
the fountainhead of all our literature and art. Here 
in Athens one's reading goes to the wall. The Parthe- 
non has been described as often as the Sphinx, yet the 
sight of this noblest strutlure ever reared by man is 
something which makes all literary art seem poor and 
weak. Perhaps Robert Hichens, who has made the 
great desert of Sahara so real in " The Garden of 
Allah," has drawn the finest pen-pitlure of the Par- 
thenon. He dwells on the fail that though it is won- 
derfully simple and severe, yet it produces "an over- 
powering impression of sublimity and grandeur." And 
then he adds this illuminating sentence, which sums up 
all that can be said of it : "It seems to me that the 
impression created by the Parthenon as a building is 
akin to that created by the Sphinx as a statue. It sug- 
gests—seems ablually to send out like an atmosphere— 
a tremendous calm, far beyond the limits of any severity." 

This calm of the ancient world— the same calm that 
is seen in the" Antigone" and the" Eleflr a" —breathes 
from the Parthenon and the whole Acropolis of Athens. 
It seems as though across the centuries it carries a 
message to us in this age of fret and worry and stren- 

[XV] 



The Best Fruits of Travel in the Occident 

uous work, which often ends in such small achievement. 
It seems to say: " Look on my serene beauty, which has 
survived the sea-winds and the rains of over two thou- 
sand years, and take a lesson in the gospel of the sensi- 
ble life. Seek beauty in art and literature, study the 
repose that brings real rest: so will enter into you 
something of those god-given traits which have made 
me immortal." 

This message, which you get from the Parthenon, 
is worth all the trouble of the journey to Athens. No 
other place in the whole world gives you this direcl 
word of mouth from the old Greek life, in which men 
walked as gods and did god-like work that remains for- 
ever matchless and forever young. 

We have thrown away much of the fine spirit of 
the antique world in discarding the study of the classics: 
so we should draw from such remains as the Parthenon 
something of the old Greek spirit that will serve to 
neutralize the fierce greed for money and display which 
is eating out the heart of the best American virtues. 
The choragic monument of Lysicrates in Athens, 
which he set up to commemorate his vitlory in a musi- 
cal and dramatic contest, may seem childish to the 
average American; yet it represents a far higher type 
of real achievement than the libraries given by Carnegie, 
or the medical laboratories founded by Rockefeller from 
his spoils of fifty years of fierce commercial warfare. 

If the artisan of to-day could get something of the 
love of beauty and the desire for perfetlion that made 
the old Greek builder a real artist, then we should hear 
less of the war between labor and capital, and see none 
of that unlovely spirit of " working by the clock" which 
has made the name of the trades union an offense in the 
nostrils of all who love fair play and honest labor. 

" The sunny land of France" one finds an apt title as 
he travels across it from Nice to Paris. The recollec- 

[xvi] 



The Best Fruits of Travel in the Occident 

tion remains of long rows of slender poplars, of fruit 
trees trained in artistic shapes against southern walls 
and vines clambering over pretty trellises, ofchateaus and 
cathedrals and farm houses, of flashing rivers spanned 
by noble bridges, and of roads walled by solid rock and 
looking as though made for all time. So one comes to 
Paris, which is genuinely French in its gayety, its artis- 
tic traits and its fulness of life. 

Paris as it comes back to me in mental vision is 
always the city that one sees from the top of the great 
arch which Napoleon reared at the head of the Champs- 
Elysees to commemorate his victories. 'This largest arch 
in the world overlooks the splendid avenue that leads 
straight as an arrow down to the Place de la Concorde, 
and then on to the lesser arch, in imitation of that of 
Septimus Severus, to the Place de Carrousel. From 
this great arch radiate eleven broad avenues. Many 
have declared these avenues monotonous, but to me the 
scheme of Baron Haussmann has made Paris the most 
impressive city of the world. 

These fine vistas for which he sacrificed all other 
considerations, with the Seine and its many superb 
bridges, make the general view of Paris one that lingers 
in the memory. Napoleon added to the effect by a Ro- 
man solidity and grandeur in the public buildings, arches 
and monuments that he reared. The Madeleine alone 
would serve to keep his name green. Under the dome 
of the Invalides his ashes rest, but his spirit lives in 
this noble city which he did so much to make the great- 
est pleasure city of the world. Its two score museums 
make Paris a place of delight to anyone fond of art, and 
its theaters, cafes and concert halls attract all in search 
of entertainment. 

To sum up one's impressions of London in a page 
seems well nigh impossible, so colossal is this greatest 
city of the world, so varied its interest to the Ameri- 

[xvn] 



The Best Fruits of Travel in the Occident 

can, so appalling its contrast between imperial luxury 
and abject poverty. 'The likeness of language and reli- 
gion makes it seem like home after months in strange 
lands, where the spoken word is gibberish that carries 
no meaning. The honesty ', the solidity, the very com- 
placency of the Englishman makes a strong appeal to 
the American, and nowhere is this appeal put in stronger 
terms than in the modern Babylon, with its tremendous 
concentration of wealth and power and tradition. 

London epitomizes for the American all English 
history, and this history the transatlantic tourist ab- 
sorbs unconsciously, whether in the magnificent West- 
minster Abbey, or on top of one of the countless buses 
from which he may pick out the familiar names which 
he has known from childhood through Mother Goose, 
the old ballads, the histories which recount the stirring 
deeds in this town from the time of Norman William, 
and the novels of Fielding, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, 
Trollop e, Bulwer, Gissing and Wells. These things are 
in his blood and he gets thrills at every street crossing. 

At last when the traveler crosses the Atlantic and 
catches sight of the Statue of Liberty looming grandiose 
through the fog, he knows that the spirit of patriotism 
has not been lost in this welter of strange lands and 
queer people. And when that gigantic sky-line of New 
York skyscrapers rises huge and menacing, like a section 
of the Grand Canyon, he feels a thrill that nothing in 
Europe or the Orient was able to arouse. 

Later, when riding or walking in Broadway or 
Fifth avenue, with their arrogant display of immense 
wealth thrown full in one 's face, he sees that in this 
new land are marvels of energy, defiance of tradition, 
success of the impossible, limitless possibilities of growth 
and power. And so he goes home with a new apprecia- 
tion of the size of the world, the breadth of human 
sympathy and the kinship of the nations. 

[xvin] 



The Best Fruits of Travel in the Occident 

After your impressions of Europe have settled and 
clarified^ you find one feature very conspicuous. 'This is 
the radically different attitude toward life of the Euro- 
pean and the American. In every European country 
the ambition of men is to acquire a competence, and 
then to retire and enjoy life. In this country, although 
a man may deceive himself with the hope of getting 
out of harness, he seldom withdraws from aclivework. 
The American in business life or in the professions, 
works for the mere sake of achieving things— a spirit 
absolutely alien to the Old World. Most young men 
in Europe, who are heirs to large fortunes, simply 
learn how to conserve and administer their property ; 
they seldom give any thought to increasing it, and they 
do as little aclual work as possible. Many have intel- 
letlual hobbies, and in this way make their fortunes 
yield them fame. 

In America, the heir of millions usually works as 
hard as his fathers clerks, or else he spends his time 
and his money in dissipation. Even the large American 
cities have praclically no leisure class. A man who 
wishes to live without work usually finds the atmos- 
phere in America uncongenial; he must go to European 
cities to find associates in sympathy with his ideas of 
enjoying a life of leisure. 

On my way to Greece I met a genial and learned 
physician from Amsterdam, who spoke excellent English 
and who was a genuine philosopher. In discussing na- 
tional char abler, he defined the dominant American trait 
as love of work. " I spent three months in America," he 
said, "and everywhere I went I found professional and 
business men atlually in love with their work. Few 
had any literary or scientific hobbies; few were book- 
lovers or read regularly the standard authors, but all 
were so enamored of their chosen work that they never 
tired of the labor of the office. In Europe a man sel- 

[xix] 



The Best Fruits of Travel in the Occident 

dom works more than he is compelled to, in order to 
make a comfortable living, and he always looks forward 
to retirement between fifty and sixty years of age. He 
is satisfied with a certain fixed income which permits 
him to enjoy the pleasures of his station. But in Amer- 
ica every man I met had an insatiable ambition to 
achieve things, irrespeclive of the money results. Able 
engineers who had made large fortunes were still keen 
to develop new ideas and bring the great forces of 
nature into harness. Great railroad managers were 
reaching out to perfect new systems and combinations, 
and to increase the efficiency of labor. And so it was 
in every department of American life. I have two 
sons, and I intend when they are eighteen to send them 
to America for an education, at such a college as Cor- 
nell or Stanford, in order that they may absorb some- 
thing of this love of work, which I regard as the great 
driving force that has led to American achievements 
in the material and scientific world." 

'This sums up the radical difference between the 
Old and the New World. We would gain enormously 
by absorbing the European spirit of culture and enjoy- 
ment of intellectual and artistic things; but it would 
be a national misfortune should this country ever lose 
its keen desire to achieve things, and to make life bet- 
ter worth living for the man who labors in the sweat 
of his brow. 



[XX] 



GREECE, THE 

FOUNTAINHEAD OF ALL 

ART AND LETTERS 



Aden at 

the Gateway of the 

Red Sea 



Colombo, the capital of Ceylon, is the back- 
door of the mysterious Orient to one who 
travels westward. Ifone sees Colombo on the 
voyage from Europe before he has seen India and 
the Malayan coast it must seem very strange, novel 
and distinctively Oriental; but after Singapore, Ben- 
ares, Delhi and Bombay it has little to offer the tour- 
ist. The harbor is artificial, like the harbor of Bom- 
bay; it would be an open roadstead, exposed to the 
full fury of every storm were it notfor a fine break- 
water. Even with this, when the southwest monsoon 
blows, the waves sweep over this breakwater and 
made it dangerous for sampans in the inner harbor. 
Colombo has few public buildings that can make any 
pretense to architectural beauty, but it has many fine 
homes on Colpetty road, beyond the Galle Face 
Hotel, which is built on the seashore. The climate 
is much like that of Bombay, with steamy, enervat- 
ing heat and an atmosphere that is destitute of all 
life. The mixture of races is as great as in Bombay, 
with the addition of the Cingalese. This race may 
be distinguished by the round tortoise-shell combs 
worn by the men to keep their long hair in place. 
The women resemble the Hindoos in dress and 
in their fondness for jewelry and nose rings. Much 
of the hard manual labor here is done by the coal- 
black Tamils of Southern India. The Cingalese ap- 



[3] 



The Critic in the Occident 

pear to fancy trade and the lighter occupations. The 
streets are full of pedlers, who are more persistent 
in their demands to buy than in any Indian city. 

Colombo shares with Singapore the distinction of 
being one of the two great ports of call in the Orient. 
Few steamers from Europe, Australia or America 
pass it by. It is the door by which the European 
tourist enters the mysterious Orient and it is the gate- 
way through which the traveler who has seen Japan, 
China, Malaysia and India passes on to Egypt and 
the shores of the Mediterranean. 

Colombo is the greatest market for pearls, star- 
sapphires, star-rubies, cats'-eyes, moonstones, tur- 
quoises and other gems; but one must be a good judge 
of stones or these astute dealers will sell you cut-glass 
and other imitations. The shops are very small and 
most of the dealers haunt the sidewalks or the lobbies 
of the hotels. They waylay women and many refusals 
have no influence on them; they come back with the 
same beaming smile and the same engaging gestures. 

The sea voyage from Colombo to Port Said is 
one of the longest in the Orient. It consumes twelve 
days, and there is scarcely anything to relieve the 
monotony of sailing every day over oily seas be- 
neath a relentless sun. The weather is too warm for 
any ship games. Mental work in this climate is a 
great effort and it is difficult to keep one's mind on 
any reading except light fiction. Everyone takes 
a siesta after lunch; the only event of the day is din- 
ner at seven o'clock, for which nearly all dress. Many 
of the men compromise with the climate by wearing 
black dress trousers and white waistcoat, with a curi- 
ous white cotton coat, cut like a vest, with large la- 
pels. This is the correct tropical dress suit, which 
may be seen from Yokohama to Cairo. The only land 
seen in this long voyage from Colombo to Aden is 

[4] 



Aden at Gateway of the Red Sea 

the island of Socotra, one hundred and fifty miles 
from the African coast. It is seventy-one miles 
long by twenty-two miles wide. England owns the 
island, which might prove valuable as anaval station. 

A half-day's steaming from Socotra brings the 
Arabian coast into view. At early morning the 
steamer rounds a rocky point and anchors off 
Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea. Aden shares 
with Yuma the unenviable reputation of being the 
hottest place in the world. The promontory of 
Aden is five miles long by three broad and its ex- 
tremity bristles with great guns. So strongly has 
England fortified this natural coign of vantage, that 
nothing can enter or leave the Red Sea without her 
permission. 

The Rock of Aden, the seat of the main fortifi- 
cations is seventeen hundred feet high. Back of it 
is a crescent-shaped bay lined with stores, hotels 
and consulates. The most conspicuous building 
along shore is the Army and Navy Club, where 
they serve a kind of gin sour, locally known as the 
Perseus cocktail. It is a compound of egg, gin, ver- 
mouth and other liqueurs and it is remarkably pleas- 
ant to the palate. You look in vain for the native 
city of Aden, which the books say has forty-four 
thousand people; but this town lies about three 
miles from the Rock in the crater of an extinct 
volcano. 

All round the forlorn, foreign settlement of Aden 
are bare, volcanic, rocky hills which reflect the sun 
with blinding glare. Not a green thing can be 
seen in these hills; the rock looks like slag from a 
furnace which has not yet cooled from fire. 

A singular medley of races is to be seen in the 
native city of Aden — Arabs, Turks, Somalis and 
Swahilisfrom Africa; Egyptians, Parsees and coolies 

[5] 



The Critic in the Occident 

from India, and a sprinkling of a score of other 
Oriental peoples. Certainly this was the real East, 
for here was a constant procession of donkeys, camel 
carts, bearing goods to and from the mysterious 
desert beyond. The camel is the favorite beast of 
burden, although the donkey is used for short jour- 
neys. One native passed, dressed in khaki and 
mounted on a fleet camel, which was moving at a 
swinging trot and easily covering ten miles an hour. 
Occasionally the drivers of the two-wheeled carts 
were able to goad their camels into a shambling trot. 

The native city stretched away for several miles, 
the houses all one-story structures of stone or sun- 
dried brick, and all a glaring white. Much of the 
domestic life seemed to be carried on on the flat 
roofs, which are surrounded by a shallow railing of 
stone. The small houses have clay floors, no win- 
dows and no chimneys. The smoke pours out the 
open doors. The people are as dirty as the low- 
caste Hindoos, but there were no signs of the grind- 
ing poverty of many parts of India. Only the low- 
class working women showed their faces; those of 
the better class covered the face except the eyes, 
while the carriages in which they rode were com- 
pletely shrouded with canopies. 

The Arab differs essentially from the Hindoo; 
he walks with a more independent stride; he has 
the quick, nervous movements of the Malay. Along 
the shore on the way to the native city we passed a 
large ship-vard, with a half-dozen dahabiyehs on 
the stocks. A score of natives were seated on the 
sand, sewing one of the big canvas lateen sails of 
these native boats. Thev sewed in time to a monot- 
onous chant in which all joined. One enterprising 
youngster left the working group and ran after our 
carriage, shouting: "Salaam, Sahibs! Bakshish! Bak- 

[6] 



Aden at Gateway of the Red Sea 
shish!" at the same time rubbing his stomach to 
indicate that he was hungry. This ship-yard is 
the property of the richest native of Aden, a Parsee 
from Bombay, who came here thirty years ago and 
began life as a clerk in a small store. 

The trade of Aden is in ostrich feathers, coffee, 
dates and salt. Across the gulf seven miles away, is 
a flourishing city, Sheik Othman, and near it may 
be seen huge piles of glistening salt. Here are ar- 
ranged a series of salt pans, cut out of solid rock. 
The sea water is pumped into these pans and then 
evaporated by the powerful sun. The country back 
of Sheik Othman is said to be very fertile and to 
produce large crops of maize, sorghum, dates, cotton 
and other produces. This country is not safe for 
the European traveler, as any party is sure to be 
robbed unless it has the protection of a native chief. 
The British captured Aden from the Arabs in 1839, 
but it was thirty years later before they secured im- 
munity from attacks by the desert tribe known as 
Fadhli. This peace they did not gain by force of 
arms, but by payment of money to the influential 
sheiks who control the savage tribesmen. 

England keeps a strong garrison at Aden, but 
the stay of Tommy Atkins is usually limited to 
two years. Everything is done to secure the com- 
fort of the troops and officials who are billeted in 
this desolate corner of Arabia. The houses are 
massively built, with double roofs and wide verandas. 
One of the best sites is occupied by the quarters of 
the cable and telegraph staff. These men have a 
fine messroom, with a spacious piazza that overlooks 
the gulf. They are on duty for shifts of four hours, 
but it is found necessary to change them often be- 
cause of the debilitating effect of the monotonous 
life. The climate is dry and hot, a much better 

[7] 



The Critic in the Occident 

climate than that of Bombay or Colombo; but the 
uneventful life is difficult to endure philosophically. 
Aden is visited by about sixteen hundred and fifty 
steamers yearly, but their stay is so short that in 
many cases passengers cannot venture on shore. 
The sea trade of the port amounts to $1,280,000 a 
year. The chief traffic with tourists is in ostrich 
feathers, which are sold as plumes or made up in 
fans. A good plume which costs twenty dollars in 
any American city, may be purchased here for five 
dollars, and fair plumes may be secured for two 
dollars. Good bargains may be made when the 
steamer is about to sail, for the Arabs who come 
aboard seem averse to taking ashore any goods. 



[8] 



Steaming 

Through the Suez 

Canal 



The passage through the Suez Canal, which 
many travelers find tedious because of the 
intense heat, proved entertaining for the 
passengers on the North German Lloyd steamer, 
Princess Alice. The warmth of the sun was tem- 
pered by a cool breeze, and the vessel's slow progress 
was not resented as it would have been had the sun 
blazed down on the glittering sands. The approach 
to the canal is not impressive. The old Arabian 
town of Suez, at the entrance of the canal, was con- 
verted into a busy city of nearly twenty thousand 
people in a few years, but with the completion of 
the big ditch the importance of the place declined. 
It has fine docks, but its trade is now inconsiderable. 
Seen from the sea, it is picturesque, but only with a 
glass can one make out the entrance of the canal. 
The remarkable spectacle may be seen of steamers, 
apparently a half-mile inland, moving slowly through 
great stretches of shining sand. These are vessels 
which are entering or leaving the canal. Soon your 
own steamer is abreast of the entrance. Then the 
speed is suddenly reduced to about six miles an 
hour and the big vessel enters the canal. Even at 
this slow speed the wash of the steamer carries dirt 
from the Arabian side into the canal; so if run at 
full speed a single large steamer would cause dam- 
age which it would take many days to repair. 

[9] 



The Critic in the Occident 

The first thing that impresses the visitor is that 
though the canal has been opened for over forty 
years, it is still uncompleted. The Egyptian side of 
the canal is well lined with stone for many miles, 
but the Arabian side is not finished in this way. 
For a few miles the shore is protected by a neat 
stone wall; then the mere bank is seen, with de- 
vices for preventing the mud and sand from falling 
into the canal. At various points, hundreds of work- 
men are engaged on the Arabian side in widening 
the canal, which varies in width from two hundred 
and thirty to three hundred and sixty feet, with a 
uniform width at the bottom of one hundred and 
twenty-eight feet. The canal throughout is now 
thirty-one feet deep, which allows vessels drawing 
twenty-eight feet to go through. At regular inter- 
vals are stations, with wide places for the passage of 
large steamers. As the canal is ninety-nine miles 
long the passage occupies from fifteen to twenty-two 
hours. It is a singular fact that only on large pas- 
senger steamers can one see anything of the desert 
on either side of the canal. From the deck of a 
small steamer the passenger can see only the sides 
of the canal. On a big steamer, on the other hand, 
by standing midway of the after deck, only the land 
on each side can be seen; the vessel seems to be 
plowing her slow way through great seas of white 
sand, unrelieved by trees or rocks. 

At Suez is a bust of Ferdinand de Lesseps and 
at Port Said is a colossal statue of the man who 
joined the Mediterranean and the Red Seas. That 
is about all which this typical French promoter of 
his time has saved from the wreck of his fortune 
and his reputation. It is almost like a fairy tale or 
a story from the Arabian Nights, this romance of 
the young French diplomatic agent who dreamed 

[10] 



Steaming Through the Suez Canal 

for years of the uniting of these two great seas and 
who was finally able to carry out his projedt through 
the enthusiasm and lavishness of the Khedive, Is- 
mail Pasha. Criminal extravagance marked the cut- 
ting of this canal and this waste Ismail had to pay 
for. The canal cost fifteen million dollars more 
than De Lesseps' estimates and this deficit Ismai.' 
was called upon to make up. To do this, he was 
forced to sacrifice his own fortune and to mortgage 
the revenues of Egypt for such a large sum that the 
country was hopelessly involved. The result was 
his own deposition from power and the transfer of 
the control of Egypt to one of the greatest English 
administrators of his age— Sir Evelyn Baring, now 
the Earl of Cromer. In this wreck that followed 
the prodigal waste of Ismail and De Lesseps, the 
French Government was also involved, for Disraeli, 
by a shrewd move at the opportune moment, bought 
up Ismail's canal shares and this gave to England 
the practical control of the canal. 

The digging of the Suez Canal was carried on 
in a primitive way compared with the work that has 
been going on for several years on the Panama 
Canal. At the outset twenty-five thousand Arab 
workmen dug up the soil with clumsy tools and 
carried it in baskets on their heads, precisely as they 
do to-day in Arabia or Egypt. Some labor-saving 
devices were introduced before the completion of 
the work, but during all these ten years of construc- 
tion progress was slow. With the tremendous en- 
gines used at Panama, the Suez Canal could have 
been dug in three or four years. Even to-day native 
laborers along the line of the Suez Canal may be 
seen working with tools that have been handed 
down for generations. Tramways have been built 
and cars are used for getting rid of the excavated 

["] 



The Critic in the Occident 

soil; but the Arab potters along in the hot sun and 
does about as much work as a ten-year-old Ameri- 
can boy. He rests on the handle of his heavy shovel 
and inspects each steamer that passes. He shouts 
Arabic at the intruder and if an inspector is not in 
sight he will run along the edge of the canal and 
beg for anything which the passengers may see fit 
to throw to him. Several of these Arabs created 
much diversion by fishing from the canal the old 
pith helmets, oranges and other articles which were 
thrown to them from the ship. One fellow, who 
wore an American army blouse over his Arab dress, 
retrieved a helmet from the water, put it on and 
strutted proudly along the bank, the envy of all his 
companions. 

All day the big German steamer moved slowly 
through the canal. The passengers lined the rails 
during the early hours, for every few yards brought 
surprises in the way of novel scenes and incidents. 
In the first place, it was plain that on both sides of 
the canal the country was a literal desert. Califor- 
nians who know the Mojave and Colorado deserts 
abounding with cactus, mesquit and other plant 
life, must revise their ideas of a desert when looking 
out upon the banks of this canal. Here, stretching 
away to the purple mountains in the dim distance, 
are vast plains of white sand, with only an occasional 
bit of green to relieve the deadly monotony. These 
green patches are oases, due to the presence of 
water. The largest is near Port Said and is known 
as the Wells of Moses. The water of some of these 
wells is very bitter, but the moisture has converted 
a strip of desert sand into a garden, with fields of 
green grass, orchards and vineyards. The true Ori- 
ental aspect is given to this oasis by groves of date 
palms, whose feathery tops wave in the light breeze. 

[12] 






IK 



I I 



o u » g g. | < % w g- «? 

« N ,-, .. ft -. w^^/» 



3 2! sr 3 155- 3 n, ^ 3-u 

-So t»o5V'»wn3 

8 <"» A. 

13 



„T2? 



Steaming Through the Suez Canal 

These wells are of historical interest as they served 
as a resting place for the children of Israel and the 
bitter waters Moses made sweet by the use of a 
desert shrub. 

Across the wastes of sand that line the canal on 
either side were seen at intervals small parties of 
Bedouins with camels and tents. Some were on the 
march, the women huddled high up on the camels, 
while the men walked, urging on the tired animals. 
Others were camped by the wayside, the black tents 
showing out in strong relief against the glittering 
sand; the camels lying down, and small flocks of goats 
or sheep browsing around. Here for the first time 
we saw the typical nomads of the desert, with their 
tall, gaunt frames, covered with dirty, black cloaks. 
The Arab wears clothes that impede his work. In- 
stead of trousers he has a long, loose dress of white 
or blue cotton that interferes with every movement 
of his body, and he adds to this a long, black cloak, 
with cloth enough in it to make several American 
overcoats. Even the laborers on the canal wear blue 
cotton dresses, reaching nearly to their heels. The 
Arabs, men and women, squat in the sand, and if 
their faces and dress are any index, they seldom 
know the luxury of a bath. The children are num- 
erous, but, unlike those of Japan and India, they 
are seldom naked. A shirt of dirty white or black 
reaching to the knee appears to be the favorite gar- 
ment of children of both sexes under ten years of age. 

The camel fits into this desert picture as per- 
fectly as his Arab driver. The ungainly animal is 
usually of a dirty yellow, so that at a little distance 
it is impossible to distinguish him from the desert 
sands. He moves at a slow walk and his long stride 
makes this a very uncomfortable motion for his 
rider. Occasionally one sees the genuine riding 

['3l 



The Critic in the Occident 

dromedary, which moves at a rapid trot and covers 
great distances with small fatigue to the rider. All 
along the Arabian side of the canal camels were seen 
browsing on the small shrubs that grow in sheltered 
spots or cropping the grass that marks an occasional 
spring or small water course. With the naked eye 
these camels could not be seen, but a strong glass 
brought them up against their neutral-tinted back- 
ground. An occasional coyote also slunk along, 
his coat the very tint of the desert sand. The 
Bedouins, however, were conspicuous at great dis- 
tances because of their wide-flowing, black garments 
and their white turbans. In their walk, their ges- 
tures and their faces, they presented a great contrast 
to the low caste Hindoos and Mohammedans of 
India. The Arab has a fine, stately stride; he carries 
himself like a soldier, and his face bears out the 
martial illusion, as it is full of pride and intelligence. 
It is of interest to American readers, in view of 
the Panama Canal, to know that the Suez Canal 
pays large dividends on the stock. The tariff is 
one dollar and seventy cents per ton register and 
two dollars for every passenger. The result is that 
a big steamer like the Princess Alice paid twelve 
thousand five hundred dollars in tolls for one pas- 
sage. The day she steamed through the canal was 
evidently good for business as a blue funnel line 
freight steamer preceded us and three other steamers 
followed closely in our wake. As there are no locks 
and no sharp curves navigation goes on by night as 
well as by day, a huge searchlight being rigged up 
in the bow, which throws a flood of light across the 
entire canal. It was a fine spectacle to see this cone 
of brilliant light moving in advance of the steamer- 
a modern pillar of fire such as that which led the 
Israelites of old. 

[h] 



Sailing Among 

the Historic Isles of 

Greece 



Failure to change my ticket forced me to go 
to Naples before proceeding to Athens. The 
journey from Naples to Brindisi was saved 
from monotony by the fine mountain scenery, but it 
was tedious because of the slowness of the train and 
the prejudice of the Italians against any fresh air in 
the coaches. The Italian is usually of robust build; 
he looks the picture of health; but if you open a win- 
dow in one end of a compartment he will detect a 
draft at once and will appeal to the guard to have 
the fresh air cut off. The feature of this journey 
was the sight of a half-dozen towns perched high 
on the summits of almost inaccessible mountains. 
These were relics of the days before the discovery 
of gun-powder, when such strongholds could be de- 
fended successfully by a mere handful of men against 
an army of invaders. 

Brindisi, the ancient Brundusium of the Romans 
and the southern terminus of the Appian Way, is 
one of the least interesting of Italian cities. In our 
day it is known mainly as the point of transit from 
the P. and O. steamers to the through fast trains 
which whirl the traveler from India across the con- 
tinent of Europe to Calais and the Channel steamers. 

The voyage from Brindisi to Patras is through 
historic waters. A stop was made at Corfu, a fa- 
mous winter resort on an island off the Albanian 



[15] 



The Critic in the Occident 

coast. The houses are built on a rocky rampart 
which encircles a spacious bay; two ancient Venetian 
fortresses lend a touch of romance to the city. The 
streets are narrow and crooked and the houses lofty. 
Some old Venetian palaces remain to give an idea 
of former splendor, but the town shows the impress 
of the British administrators, who dominated the 
island for nearly a half century. They built a broad 
esplanade which lines the massive seawall and they 
made good roads throughout the island. 

The surrounding country is famous for its olive 
groves and a drive of several miles takes one to the 
villa of Achilleon, built for the late Empress Eliza- 
beth of Austria, but now the property of the Ger- 
man Kaiser. The road to this villa runs through a 
rich farming country and is lined with groves of 
ancient, gnarled olive trees, with trunks from two to 
three feet in diameter. The men of Corfu appear 
to lead leisurely lives; only the women and the don- 
keys labor early and late. On the return from 
market the man rides the family donkey, while his 
wife trudges behind barefoot over the muddy roads. 

The German Emperor showed good judgment 
in selecting Corfu as a place for spending the spring 
months, for even in midwinter the air is mild, the 
sea calm and all nature seems at rest— a genuine 
lotus-eating land. The Emperor's villa boasts some 
good statuary, including a heroic figure of Achilles 
and replicas of many famous Greek and Roman 
statues, among which are the two boxers from Her- 
culaneum. From a terrace in front of the statue of 
Achilles, one has a noble view of the bay of Corfu 
and the Aegean sea, every island and every head- 
land being historic ground. 

The villa grounds are terraced and by a wind- 
ing pathway one may descend to the water's edge 

[16] 



The Historic Isles of Greece 

through groves of semi-tropical trees and flowering 
plants brought from the four quarters of the globe. 
Near the water is the tomb of the unfortunate Em- 
press, surmounted by a beautiful marble statue. The 
villa, which crowns the highest point of the grounds, 
boasts some good statuary, but the paintings, and 
especially the mural decorations, are so atrociously 
bad that the wonder is that the Emperor can endure 
them. Probably he tolerates them because they are 
the work of German artists. 

Not far from Corfu is the island where Odysseus 
was cast ashore and had some pleasant parley with 
the beautiful Greek maiden, Nausicaa, who showed 
the wanderer her skill in playing ball. 

As the steamer departs Corfu is lit up by the 
setting sun, its picturesque houses glowing in the 
rosy light. Soon we are in the Ionian Sea. All 
around is historic ground. On the Epirote coast 
lies Actium, where Antony was defeated by Octavian, 
while on the other side is the bold headland, the 
Leucadian Rock, from which passionate Sappho cast 
herself because her love for Phaon was not returned. 
To the east is Ithaca, the home of the much-traveled 
Ulysses, and farther on at the entrance to the bay 
of Patras, Don John of Austria destroyed the 
Turkish fleet at the famous battle of Lepanto. 

Soon we neared the northwest point of the 
Peloponnesus, beyond which is Missolonghi, famous 
as the place where Lord Byron caught the fever 
and died in 1824, just as he had thrown himself 
with all the ardor of his nature into the Greek re- 
volt against Turkish rule. It is curious how this 
most creditable episode in the life of Byron colors 
one's view of this scene. The personality of this 
erratic man of genius is stronger than all the history 
which forms the background of this bit of old Greece. 

[17] 



The Critic in the Occident 
We see from his letters that he knew he was fac- 
ing grave danger in staying at fever-infested Mis- 
solonghi, but he wrote: "It is proper that I should 
remain in Greece; and it were better to die doing 
something than nothing." Byron's last letters, as 
well as those which he wrote in the heyday of his 
fame, are remarkably good reading, but the world 
ignores them now, for few editions of his poems in- 
clude even a selection of these brilliant and witty 
epistles. 

Patras is simply a commonplace, commercial town, 
but the railroad ride from Patras to Athens is one 
of the most beautiful and varied in all Europe. The 
train first passes through miles of vineyard-care- 
fully cultivated plantations of the small, seedless 
grapes whose dried product is known as the Zante 
currant. Grape vines are pruned low as in Cali- 
fornia, and the only support for the vine is a short 
stake. The railroad skirts the shore of the Gulf of 
Corinth, which is as blue as the bay of Monterey. 
Across the water are piled the pink and violet 
mountains that remind one, in contour and color, 
of the Coast Range of California. In fact, every- 
where in this old, historic land of Greece one is re- 
minded of the brand new California— the samerugged 
coast line, the same contour of the hills, the same 
wonderful shades of sea and sky and far-off myste- 
rious mountains. The yellow sand of little beaches 
meets the exquisite turquoise-colored sea, just as it 
does at Carmel, and here one may look down on 
the many shades of violet and purple, formed by 
floating seaweed, precisely as one may from the old 
Spanish mission church where Father Junipero 
Serra lies at rest. 

Finally the train nears Corinth. There, on a 
hillside, is the place where St. Paul lived for eigh- 

[18] 



The Historic Isles of Greece 

teen months, laboring six days every week as a tent- 
maker. Here is the picture given of him in the Bible: 

And he reasoned in the synagogue and persuaded the 
Jews and the Greeks. 

And when Silas and Timotheus were come from 
Macedonia Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to 
the Jews that Jesus was Christ. 

And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, 
he shook his raiment, and said unto them : Your blood 
be upon your own heads; I am clean; henceforth I will 
go unto the Gentiles. 

While your imagination is filled with this picture 
of the ablest of the Apostles, your eye is offended 
by the crude, ugly work of the Corinth Canal, lying 
two hundred feet below the train. This canal cuts 
the Isthmus of Corinth and has been a great help 
to commerce, but it ruins the pit"" >esqueness of the 
coast. Beyond the isthmus the train runs along the 
Gulf of Aegina, of vivid, wonderful blue, with a back- 
ground of mountain wall, and with many islands to 
lend beauty to the view. One of these islands is the 
historic Salamis, where the three thousand Persian 
ships of Xerxes were scattered and sunk by three 
hundred ships filled with fighting Greeks, just as in 
recent years the great navy of Russia was hammered 
and destroyed by Admiral Togo and his fierce Jap- 
anese sea-fighters. 

Soon we see rising straight ahead a gleaming 
summit, the Acropolis of Athens, the fountain head 
of all our art, the mecca of the pilgrimage of every 
lover of the noblest poetry and the finest sculpture 
the world has ever known. 



[»9] 



The Acropolis 

and the Parthenon 

of Athens 



On all sides in Athens is historic ground, for 
here was developed not only the finest liter- 
ature, sculpture and architecture that the 
world has yet known, but here also a small but 
brave people defeated great armies from Persia and 
celebrated their victory by erecting temples and 
statues that even in their ruins still make a power- 
ful appeal to all lovers of the beautiful. What led 
to this sudden flowering of the genius of a people 
like the Greeks no one may say, nor has the world 
discovered the causes of the rapid deterioration of 
this nation. The few remaining relics of the statues 
and buildings of the ancient Greeks thrill one's 
heart, so perfect are they and so thoroughly do they 
satisfy the eye. Simple in design, unapproached in 
perfection of workmanship, they stand to-day as 
specimens of what may be wrought by the highest 
artistic genius. And yet with all our scientific dis- 
coveries and our superior command of the resources 
of the builder's art, we are unable to reproduce the 
perfect lines of the capitals and columns of the Par- 
thenon or to equal the beauty of the caryatides of 
the Erechtheum. The Acropolis is the despair of 
the modern sculptor and architect, for they recognize 
that these Greeks of the days of Phidias and Prax- 
iteles had a mastery of the resources of their art 
which no modern sculptor or builder has ever gained. 



[ao] 



The Acropolis and the Parthenon 

Athens impresses the stranger with the clearness 
of its air, the beauty of its encircling snow-capped 
mountains, and the picturesqueness of its three hills, 
Mount Hymettus, the Lykobettos and the Acrop- 
olis. We arrived after dark and it was on a gloomy 
winter morning that we obtained our first view of 
the city. The summit of Hymettus was hidden by 
low-lying rain clouds; the snow-clad peak of Par- 
nassus was only faintly visible through a veil of 
mist and cloud; but the striking solitary butte of 
Lykobettos stood out like a sentinel, and when we 
had walked a few blocks from our hotel we sud- 
denly came upon the Acropolis, looming dark and 
menacing against the stormy western sky and the 
Aegean Sea beyond. Richard Philipp, a well-known 
architect of Milwaukee, accompanied me from 
Naples to Athens, and with his expert guidance and 
his explanations of the fine features of the immortal 
Greek structures on the Acropolis, my visit proved 
to be of great interest. For years I had read books 
about Greek art and studied photographs of the 
Parthenon and the other famous buildings erected 
in the golden age of Greece. But the actual sight of 
these splendid structures, even in their melancholy 
ruin, was a pleasure worth going half way around 
the world to enjoy. 

The first sight of the Parthenon is something 
to be remembered for one's natural life. Familiar 
as photography has made the front of this noblest 
structure ever reared by man, the temple somehow 
strikes you as more massive, more beautiful, than 
any picture. It realizes your expectations; it satis- 
fies the eye as does the lovely Taj Mahal of Agra; 
but it far surpasses that perfect tomb erected by old 
Shah Jahan to the memory of his beloved Queen, 
because in the Parthenon we have the majesty and 

[21] 



The Critic in the Occident 

the sublimity of the great temple added to the 
rarest skill in architecture. 

Set upon a natural rocky plateau, five hundred 
and twelve feet above the level of Athens, facing 
the rising sun which gilds its pale yellow front, the 
Parthenon is an impressive spectacle from whatever 
point one may view it. I saw it under many con- 
ditions, but never found it other than beautiful, 
majestic, and full of that divine calm which marked 
the gods of Olympus. It is best seen under the 
brilliant morning sunshine, which makes its age- 
worn marbles glow with the rich amber tint of Kar- 
nak or Luxor. It is the atmosphere of profound 
calm, not of this world, which most deeply impresses 
the sympathetic observer— something of the same 
effect produced by the Antigone or the Medea 
when seen on the stage. The more primitive one's 
nature, the less sophisticated by fashion or worldly 
custom, the greater will be the effect on the emo- 
tions of this finest masterpiece of Greek art. 
Words are poor to describe what one feels when 
lost in contemplation of this splendid temple which 
represented the blending of the Greek's passionate 
love of country with his equally passionate love of 
beauty and measure in art. To see it now, even in 
its melancholy ruin, is to feel something of the thrill 
which moved these old Greeks when they beheld, 
after long absence, this visible sign of the greatness 
of Athens. To be a Roman citizen in the days 
when the great empire of the Caesars reached from 
the Tiber to the farthest confines of the known 
world, was something which the modern man can- 
not know; but it seems to me that to be an Athe- 
nian in the days of Pericles and Phidias was some- 
thing finer and more satisfying. Only one age in 
the modern world has approached this flowering 

[22] 



The Acropolis and the Parthenon 

time of Greek art and literature, and that was the 
age of Elizabeth, which gave the world Shakespeare, 
Marlowe, Ben Jonson and Bacon. 

The Parthenon typifies the highest mark in art 
and letters ever reached by the genius of man. 
Hence this sense of the profound calm of the gods 
which still breathes from these stones, making the 
blood glow and the eyes fill as one feels again, after 
all these eventful years, the emotions that stirred 
these great artists and builders in the splendid noon 
of Greek history. 

Seen from a little distance the ravages of time 
and vandalism are obscured; then it seems a nearly 
perfect building. But, when seen nearby, the terrible 
havoc wrought by the explosion of a Venetian 
powder magazine in the seventeenth century is sadly 
apparent. As you approach the Acropolis you 
realize what a natural fortress this was before the 
discovery of gunpowder. The rocky walls have 
been cut down sheer to the bottom. On the south 
side are the Greek theater of Dionysius and the 
Roman theater, built by Herodes Atticus and com- 
pleted by Hadrian. These are built into the side of 
the hill, so that the audiences sat with their backs 
to the Acropolis. 

The Theater of Dionysius is noteworthy as the 
place in which were produced for the first time the 
great tragedies of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschy- 
lus and the comedies of Aristophanes. In those 
days a special stage was erected for each perform- 
ance, while the audience sat on the hillside. The 
Romans paved the orchestra with marble and made 
comfortable seats. The Roman theater on the other 
side had an imposing front of three stories, built of 
brown limestone, and had seating capacity for five 
thousand. These seats were faced with marble. 

O3] 



The Critic in the Occident 

The Acropolis was a natural fort, which could 
be scaled only on the western side, where the main 
gateway was flanked by two towers, strongly fortified. 
From this gate marble steps led to the Propylea 
or main gateway, consisting of a central doorway 
and two wings, all built of the finest Pentelic marble. 
The Doric columns of the Propylea are very mas- 
sive, but they are relieved by slenderer Ionic columns 
twenty feet high. The doorway was of black marble 
and back of it may still be seen the grooves on 
which the huge wooden doors swung. On a bas- 
tion at the right of the Propylea is a small but very 
beautiful Temple of Nike, built about 440 B. C. 
It was adorned with a sculptured frieze eighty-five 
feet long and eighteen inches high. 

Passing through the Propylea the eye is caught 
by the beautiful and graceful Erechtheum on the 
left, and the stately and majestic Parthenon on the 
right. In the old Greek days the center of this 
open space between the gateway and the two temples 
was occupied by the colossal bronze statue of Athena, 
modeled by Phidias and erected with the spoils 
taken from the Persians at Marathon. 

The Parthenon was built on the south side of 
the Acropolis with its front facing the east. It is 
familiar in its outlines to every American school 
child, but no amount of familiarity with pictures or 
photographs of the building prepares one for its 
tremendous effect upon the beholder. Here is a 
temple designed on simple lines, but so massive and 
yet so perfect in every detail that it has the same 
effect on the eye as a great work of nature like El 
Capitan at the entrance of the Yosemite Valley. 
When first erected it was of pure white Pentelic 
marble, but the action of the elements for twenty- 
four hundred years has stained many of the columns 



The Acropolis and the Parthenon 

to a rich brown shade known among painters as 
burnt umber, while others are of the tint of honey 
or amber. This great temple was built on purely 
Greek lines. It originally included ninety-eight 
Doric columns, forty -six of which were thirty-four 
feet high and the others a foot less in height; fifty 
life-size pieces of sculpture for the pediments at 
each end; ninety-two metopes or smaller figures; a 
frieze five hundred and twenty-four feet long and a 
colossal statue of Athena in gold and ivory forty- 
three feet high. 

This temple was erected by Pericles, while Phidias, 
finest of Greek sculptors, had entire charge of its 
ornamentation. Great as Phidias was no master- 
piece of his remains to the world. All we know is 
that he designed the colossal statue of Athena and 
that he planned the frieze and the metopes and the 
other statues that made the Acropolis the pride of 
every Greek. His pupils and his workmen must 
have shared in his enthusiasm, for every detail of 
ornamentation of bases or capitals shows artistic 
work which the Romans never equaled. 

It is a great help in appreciating the Parthenon 
to have as a companion an architect who has made 
a technical study of Greek art, for he is able to point 
out the perfect work of these old craftsmen. The 
lines of the Doric bases are all absolutely true; the 
decorative work is simple but extremely efFe&ive, 
and the devices for correcting the natural vision are 
so ingenious that no modern artist has been able to 
equal them. The Greeks knew that the lines of a 
column must not be absolutely perpendicular or 
the column will look as though it leaned outward; 
hence they made all their columns lean inward, so 
that the optical illusion is maintained. Yet the 
amount of this divergence and the arrangement of 

[*sl 



The Critic in the Occident 

it throughout the column is the despair of the mod- 
ern architect. Experts have also discovered that the 
great Doric columns of the Parthenon were put in 
place by seditions and that the fluting of these col- 
umns was then carved. As this fluting is perfectly 
accurate here also is a task that would test the skill 
of the best modern workmen. 

In the museum in Athens is a plaster repro- 
duction of what the best authorities regard as the 
groups of statuary that adorned the front and rear 
pediment of the Parthenon. This space or tympa- 
num was ninety-one and a half feet long by ten and 
a half feet in height in the center, and the back be- 
ing painted red, this brought out the marble figures 
in the strongest relief. The front was devoted to 
the birth of Athena, while the other depicted the 
triumph of Athena over Poseidon, the god of ocean, 
in their battle for possession of Attica. 

The finest sculptures of the Parthenon were the 
metopes or life-sized figures, most of which were 
bought in 1802 by Lord Elgin, then Minister at 
Athens, and transported to the British Museum in 
London, where they now form its most valued pos- 
session. The frieze of the Parthenon contained the 
finest Greek work in bas-relief. In the Acropolis 
Museum are twenty-two slabs from the frieze which 
depict the festal procession in honor of Athena, 
which was held every four years in Athens. 

Below the Parthenon, to the left, are the ruins 
of the Erechtheum, a smaller temple of the goddess 
Athena Pallas and other deities, more beautiful but 
less impressive than the great temple. The features 
of this temple are the graceful Ionic columns, the 
superb northern doorway, and the colonnade of the 
Caryatides. In the latter, instead of columns, six 
statues of maidens support the roof. These fig- 

[26] 




The Portico of the Erechtheum or Temple of Pallas Athena 

at Athens, Showing the Portico Upheld by Caryatides. These 

Figures of Women are Among the Best Remains of Greek 

Art of the Age of Phidias. The Dark One is of 

Plaster, as the Original is in the Elgin 

Collection in the British Museum 



The Acropolis and the Parthenon 

ures have all the easy grace of an Oriental woman 
carrying a water jar on her head, while at the same 
time they seem to be instinct with the dignity and 
force of Greek goddesses. If ever triumphant woman- 
hood was wrought in marble, here it is. One feels 
that these are women, "divinely planned," with al- 
most the strength of men, yet with that mysterious 
appeal of sex which removes them from the austere 
heights of Pallas Athena. These are women who 
have no ailments, no nerves; ideal companions for 
men who love the strenuous life. 

The north door is approached through six col- 
umns that are beautifully decorated. This little 
temple gives an extraordinary impression of grace 
and lightness, which furnishes a striking contrast to 
the strength and massiveness of the Parthenon. It 
seems strange that with all this wealth of art work 
in marble the Greeks should have demanded color 
in the decoration of the Parthenon and its statues; 
yet we have in the remains found on the Acropolis 
and in the records of ancient writers not only ample 
proof that the temples were brilliantly colored, but 
that even the statuary was painted. 

All the art work on the Acropolis appears to 
have been done by sculptors and minor craftsmen 
who were thoroughly in love with their task. In 
our own day in the Chicago Fair we had a good illus- 
tration of the effect of giving able artists a free hand 
in the designing and decoration of the exposition 
buildings. Good experts pronounced the Agricul- 
tural building at Chicago, designed by McKim, the 
finest structure of modern times. Something of this 
same spirit of generous rivalry must have existed 
among the pupils and the workmen of Phidias and 
the architects of the Parthenon, for in every minute 
detail this Greek temple reveals the height of skill 

[27] 



The Critic in the Occident 

in design and carving. That all this work was ac- 
complished in ten years shows that the workmen of 
the time of Phidias had not absorbed the modern 
trade union idea that the mechanic should do the 
least amount of work possible in an eight-hour day. 

It would have come down to modern times 
practically uninjured had it not been for the vandal- 
ism of the Venetians, who in the seventeenth cen- 
tury used the building for storing their powder. 
During a Turkish attack on the Acropolis a shell 
was dropped into this powder and the resulting ex- 
plosion destroyed much of the Parthenon. In the 
work of restoration good sculptors should be em- 
ployed, as much work done in recent years offends 
the eye, so inferior is it to the old Greek carving. 

In the Acropolis Museum as well as in the 
National Archaeological Museum in Athens one 
may get a good idea of the perfection of the work 
of the antique sculptors. The drapery of the female 
figures from the Parthenon clings to the limbs yet 
reveals their rounded forms, as in life. Nothing 
more strongly marks the difference between Greek 
and Roman art than the method of handling the 
drapery of the female costume. To the Greeks it 
seemed a simple task to reproduce in marble the 
very effects seen in everyday life; to the Romans 
this work was beyond their power. 



[28] 



Remains of 

Ancient Art in 

Athens 



The Acropolis Museum is disappointing be- 
cause so many of the exhibits are in a frag- 
mentary condition. Legs and arms and 
torsos abound, but it requires much imagination to 
reconstruct the perfect figures from these remains. 
Perhaps the most satisfactory work may be found 
in bas-relief, for here the vandalism of time has had 
less opportunity to destroy the perfect lines of the 
original figures. Of this work the Parthenon frieze 
is the most interesting, as it reveals the simplicity 
of the method of these Greek sculptors and the 
wonderful effects that they secured. Some of the 
figures of Nike or Victory are rarely beautiful in 
outline and expression, especially the one so often 
reproduced, the Nike loosening her sandal. 

In the National Archaeological Museum are 
scores of statues and other work gathered from 
many parts of Greece. It is to be regretted that the 
Greek government has adopted the parochial plan 
of permitting all the remains exhumed to stay in 
the places where they are discovered. In this way 
small and remote towns each possess some perfect 
work of ancient Greek art which is never seen ex- 
cept by enthusiasts who can afford the time to visit 
it. If these statues were removed to Athens, then 
the great body of tourists would be able to enjoy 
them. Another curious rule is that which has en- 



[29] 



The Critic in the Occident 

forced labeling of all exhibits in Greek alone. As nine- 
tenths of the visitors are foreigners who understand 
no Greek, the absurdity of this method is apparent. 

Below the Acropolis is the Hill of Mars, on 
which St. Paul stood when he preached to the 
Athenians warning them that they were too super- 
stitious and that the altar to the Unknown God 
should have been erected to the "Lord of heaven 
and earth" who "dwelleth not in temples made 
with hands." Nearby is a cave in the hillside which 
is said to be the one in which Socrates was confined 
before he was made to drink the hemlock. 

One of the notable Roman remains in Athens 
is the Arch of Hadrian, that divides the city of 
Theseus from the city of Hadrian. It is of two 
stories, with a noble sweep of arch and a light and 
graceful upper structure. It somehow suggests the 
mingled strength and culture of this old Roman 
Emperor who left enduring traces of his presence 
from one end of the great empire to the other. 

Nearby is the Byzantine church of Kahnikarea, 
which is a beautiful specimen of the best architecture. 
It was erected in the ninth century on foundations 
laid in the fifth century after Christ. No attempt 
has been made to modernize this church and the 
result is a perfect specimen of Byzantine architecture. 

Athens is full of the remains of Greek art, some 
of it fully equal to that found on the Acropolis. One 
is the monument of Lysikrates, erected by a winner 
in the Dionysian games. It looks like a small round 
temple and its main feature is a circle of six Corin- 
thian half-columns, supporting a richly sculptured 
frieze and a conical roof of a single slab of marble. 
The bronze tripod won by the victor once sur- 
mounted the roof. Even in its ruin this monument 
is beautiful in its symmetry and perfection of form. 

[3°] 



Remains of Ancient Art in Athens 

Of all the old Greek buildings in Athens the 
best preserved is the Theseion, with its thirty-four 
Doric columns, eighteen feet high. The columns 
are all perfect, and the building gives a better idea 
of the Greek temple than the Parthenon, although 
the artistic work on it is much inferior to that of 
the great temple on the Acropolis. 

All around the base of the Acropolis sprawls 
the old city of Athens, with houses that remind one 
of the adobe huts of Cairo. The streets are narrow 
and crooked and the lives of the Greeks in this 
quarter is as squalid as that of the Egyptians on the 
Nile. The new Athens, however, with its wide 
avenues and its fine, modern houses, has no trace 
of the picturesqueness of the old town, but it is 
healthy and fairly clean. Very modern also is the 
huge Stadion, erected on the site of the Panthe- 
naean games, which will hold fifty thousand spec- 
tators. 

Anyone who loves Greek art and Greek poetry 
will find Athens full of interest, because on every 
side are places that recall notable events in Greek 
history or the great works of the Greek sculptors 
and poets. From descriptions of world-famous build- 
ings or statues it is difficult to imagine the real work; 
what one gets at Athens is adtual contact with all 
that is best in Greek art. These remains are badly 
mutilated, but enough has survived to prove that 
the Greeks who flourished in the fourth century 
before Christ were unsurpassed in their control of 
the resources of all the arts. 

Many travelers find Athens disappointing be- 
cause it has so few remains of the old Greek art and 
because the noisy modern city distracts their atten- 
tion from the city of Pericles and Phidias and Plato. 
But if one only keeps in mind what Athens repre- 

[31] 



The Critic in the Occident 

sents he will be able to get rich returns from a visit 
to this Hellenic mother of all art and literature. 
And in summing up what Athens and the Parthenon 
represent no one has ever put the world's debt to 
this Greek shrine in more eloquent language than 
Macaulay in this concluding passage of his review 
of Mitford's History of Greece: 

All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice 
and power, in every country and in every age, have been 
the triumph of Athens. 

Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against 
violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there 
has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring, encour- 
aging, consoling; by the lonely lamp of Erasmus; by the 
restless bed of Pascal; in the tribune of Mirabeau; in the 
cell of Galileo ; on the scaffold of Sidney. 

Wherever literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain, 
wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wake- 
fulness and tears and ache for the dark house and the long 
sleep -there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal 
influence of Athens. 



[3*] 




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PLATE X 

The Graceful Arch Erected by the Roman Emperor 

Hadrian at Athens. Its Statuary is Gone, But the Arch is in a 

Good State of Preservation, as Hadrian Built Not For 

an Age, But For all Time 




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PLATE XIII 

The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, Under the Shadow 

of the Acropolis, Athens. It Has Six Columns, But These Have 

Only two Rows of Leaves. It Originally Bore a Prize 

Tripod Won by Lysicrates in a Dramatic Contest 




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PLATE XV 

A Statuette of the Great Figure of Athena by Phidias, 

Which Was the Most Important Statue in the Parthenon. 

The Work on This Statuette is Not Good, But 

it Gives the Best Idea of the Original 

Figure, Which Was of 

Gold and Ivory 




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ITALY, 

HOME OF ART AND 

MONUMENTS 



Naples and 

Its Treasures of 

Art 



The voyage from Port Said to Naples was 
marked only by the passage of the steamer 
through the Straits of Messina, within sight 
of the city which was practically destroyed by earth- 
quake in January, 1909. Mount Etna loomed up 
on the left hand, looking huge and threatening, al- 
though fully sixty miles away. The snow that 
covered the summit and flanks of the volcano could 
be seen with the naked eye. The sea was so rough 
when the steamer neared Messina that the captain 
kept fully a mile from shore so that only through 
glasses could one make out the ruins of the earth- 
quake. The temporary structures contributed by 
the United States still stand and reconstruction ap- 
pears to have been very slow, as no new permanent 
buildings could be distinguished. Clouds of dust 
swept over the town which once had an imposing 
sea-front, as the ruined columns and arches attest. 

Just beyond Messina we passed between Scylla 
and Charybdis, but with modern steamers there 
seems to be little danger of a vessel going upon one 
of these rocks while trying to avoid the other. 
With the tremendous current that runs through the 
straits it is easy to see how an ancient sailing vessel 
might be in danger of going on these rocks when 
passing between Sicily and Italy. Early on the fol- 
lowing morning we entered the harbor of Naples 



[35] 



The Critic in the Occident 

and first saw the city under dull, leaden clouds, that 
threatened rain. 

Naples should be seen in the spring, when its 
flowers are all in bloom, its trees and vines in leaf, 
and when the sun lingers lovingly on its rounded 
harbor line, and warms to their inmost depths its 
many narrow streets that look like canyons be- 
tween solid walls of masonry. But even in chill 
midwinter this old capital of Southern Italy is a 
lovely spot, with Posilipo on one end of the great 
crescent and Sorrento on the other; with blue Capri 
in the distance, almost melting into the deeper blue 
of the Mediterranean, and with Vesuvius, its sum- 
mit shadowed by fleecy clouds of smoke, dominat- 
ing sea and shore, an ever-present menace of death 
and destruction. 

With a harbor far inferior to that of San Fran- 
cisco in natural beauty, Naples is infinitely more 
picturesque because of the skill shown in terracing 
the hillsides and making the streets encircle the 
shore. Naples has also the enormous advantage of 
an architecture that lends itself to the bold and 
rocky hills on which the city is built. 

My most vivid impression of Naples, after nine 
days' stay, was that of a city of stucco and stone. 
Most of the buildings are of yellow stucco that 
mellows with age; the streets and sidewalks are of 
a hard, dark stone that wears smooth with long use. 
In the densely populated streets huge buildings rise 
for six or seven stones and leaving nothing but a 
narrow slit of blue sky between them; massive stone 
walls brace up the sides of the hills, and many nar- 
row stone steps lead up the steep hillside. Looking 
down upon the city from the suppressed Carthusian 
monastery of San Martino, these streets appear like 
deep clefts in solid lines of masonry. 

[36] 



Naples and its Treasures of Art 

No American city, unless it be New York below 
Houston street, is so closely built as Naples. These 
miles of brick walls must store up summer heat and 
give off warmth all through the night; but in mid- 
winter the sun seldom peeps into them, and the icy 
east wind goes careering through as though it would 
enjoy tearing down the long lines of family washing 
that hang from nearly every window. The streets 
are all paved with large, square or rectangular blocks 
of stone. Many of these stones have sunk an inch 
or two below the level; others have had their cor- 
ners cracked and the rain settling in these places has 
produced a depression. The result is that driving 
over these streets in cabs that have no rubber tires 
is noisy and uncomfortable. 

Fully half the street noises of this noisiest of 
cities is made up of the roaring of wheels over the 
rough stone pavements and the incessant cracking 
of whips by cab drivers. The Naples cab usually 
has a single horse and seats for two people. The 
cabman drives like Jehu and takes desperate chances 
in the narrow streets of running over foot passengers, 
but you appreciate his point of view when you learn 
that the man who is run down in Naples is fined for 
obstructing traffic, since the Italian law holds that 
the streets are sacred to wheeled vehicles. The 
atrocity of this law may be appreciated when it is 
said that few sidewalks, even on the principal streets 
of Naples, are over six feet wide and that most of 
the pedestrians are forced to take to the streets. 

This is the case even on the Via Roma, the 
main street of Naples, which runs for a mile and a 
half through the heart of the city. This thorough- 
fare, which was opened by the Viceroy, Don Pedro 
de Toledo, in 1540, is only about forty feet wide, 
with the usual narrow sidewalks. As all Naples 

[37] 



The Critic in the Occident 

drives through this street in the afternoon and as 
it is crowded with pedestrians, the congestion of 
traffic is fearful. To add to the woes of the foot 
passenger, fakers and pedlars are permitted to sell 
their wares on the edge of the sidewalk. The Italian 
does not seem to suffer from confusion and delay 
that would drive an American insane. The Italian 
gentleman takes to the street with perfect good 
humor when he can find no place on the sidewalk, 
and he shows that he is a genuine democrat by mix- 
ing with dirty and poorly-dressed workingmen on 
terms of fraternity. 

On both sides of the Via Roma, which until 
forty years ago was known as the Toledo, extend 
narrow streets that are densely crowded. On the 
left as one ascends the Via Roma these streets 
climb the hill that is crowned with an ancient castle; 
on the other side they lead to the water-front. 
Even Cairo has no streets narrower than these, and 
this narrowness is accentuated by the great height 
of the buildings. 

Many of these alleys that climb the hill are a 
series of stone steps, very picturesque, but extremely 
difficult to reach. Most of the supplies for the dwell- 
ers in these alleys are carried up by hand or on the 
heads of women. Long lines of bay windows reduce 
the space between the two rows of tenements, and 
the alley is further darkened by the laundry of 
scores of families which flutters from lines stretched 
from window to window across the narrow street. 

This hanging of washing on the outer walls is 
one of the peculiar customs of Naples, which does 
not add to the attractiveness of the water-front or 
the tenement quarters. What increases the unsight- 
liness of this exhibit is that the linen, though freshly 
washed, is not clean. Father's shirt and mother's 

[38] 



Naples and its Treasures of Art 

waist flap against the grimy buildings, but no one 
seems to care; nor does there seem to be any hesi- 
tation about exposing garments that are frayed and 
full of holes. 

Slatternly women lean out of the windows of 
these tall buildings and exchange gossip; the streets 
are filled with children, and the stairways are alive 
with them. Privacy appears to be something un- 
known to the dwellers in these mean and narrow 
streets. Many incidents of domestic life, which in 
other lands are always hidden behind closed doors, 
are here seen in the open. 

The army and the Church are liberally repre- 
sented in the crowds that throng the streets of 
Naples at all hours except the early morning. The 
war with Tripoli was the cause during my visit of 
the appearance in Naples of large bodies of troops 
that embarked here for service in Africa. The 
soldiers were short, stocky fellows, who looked fit 
physically, but their low stature injured their appear- 
ance. They seemed to be drawn largely from the 
farm, but what they lacked in elegance and in skill 
in marching was made up by the officers, who wore 
very becoming costumes and whose mustaches, 
waxed to remarkable points, gave them a martial air. 

Priests are very numerous and they may be dis- 
tinguished at a distance by their peculiar flat hats 
of black beaver and their black robes. Many are 
barefooted save for rude sandals. These priests 
serve in the scores of churches scattered throughout 
the city. Some of these churches date back to the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; many were built 
in the fifteenth century. Upon most of them age 
has certainly set its mark, and not even elaborate 
gilding and ornamental work in bronze and stone 
can redeem their interiors from gloom. 

[39] 



Scenes in 

Gay and Noisy 

Naples 



The chief pleasure ground of Naples is the 
Villa Nazionale, a pretty park, bounded by 
the sea on one side, which is planted to many 
palms and ornamental trees. It is laid out in artistic 
style and in the season it is the great resort of 
strangers as well as the gathering place of fashion- 
able Naples. A band plays three times a week, in 
summer evenings and the avenue next to the bay is 
then crowded with carriages and the walks in the 
park thronged with pedestrians. In winter it is a 
chilly, wind-swept place, and the small tables and 
chairs of the open-air cafes serve to bring out the 
sharpness of the east wind. 

The park contains an antique granite basin from 
Paestum and a number of modern statues, including 
one of Thalberg, the pianist, who died in Naples. 
There are also small temples in honor of Virgil and 
Tasso. Here also is the Naples Aquarium, regarded 
as the most interesting in the world because of its 
great variety of rare marine life. Perhaps the most 
remarkable tank is that containing a half dozen 
varieties of the octopus. These repulsive monsters 
frequently advance to the front of their tank and 
endeavor to get nearer to the visitor, spreading their 
formidable tentacles and working in and out the 
peculiar apparatus for blood-sucking. Many beauti- 
ful varieties of coral and medusae from the Mediter- 



[40] 



Scenes in Gay and Noisy Naples 

ranean are also shown. What adds greatly to the 
attractiveness of these exhibits is the artistic arrange- 
ment of the tanks, which far surpasses that in the 
New York aquarium. 

Other interesting things in Naples are the Gal- 
leria Umberto Primo, a great arcade, built in the 
form of a cross and adorned with fine statues. The 
naves are one hundred and twenty-five feet high 
and the central dome is one hundred and eighty- 
five feet in height. This gallery is brilliantly lighted 
at night and is a fashionable gathering place of men, 
although one sees very few ladies. Ladies do not 
seem to go out in Naples in the evening except to 
the opera and the theater. It does not seem to be 
the custom for them to walk, even in such streets of 
fine shops as the Via Roma. They ride invariably 
in carriages and motors, even when shopping, a 
habit probably due to the street crowds and the 
difficulty of getting about with any comfort. 

The shops in Naples are fine and there is a be- 
wildering variety of ornaments and jewelry in coral 
and lava and tortoise shell. These three are the 
specialties of Naples, but scarcely inferior is the imi- 
tation in marble and bronze of the famous sculp- 
tures of antiquity found in Pompeii, Herculaneum, 
Paestum, Rome and other places. The most com- 
mon of these are reproductions in bronze, marble 
or lava of the Dancing Faun, Narcissus, Apollo 
playing the lyre, the Farnese Hercules and the Far- 
nese Bull, the head of Homer and many famous 
bas-reliefs. These replicas of some of the best 
work of ancient art meet one at every turn. They 
satisfy the eye, but they suggest the query why the 
modern Italian sculptors, with the originals before 
their eyes, have failed to equal the ancient artists 
in the simplicity and beauty of their work. 

[41] 



The Critic in the Occident 

Naples takes life very easily as the American 
tourist soon learns to his cost. No museum opens 
before ten o'clock and the hour of closing in winter 
is four o'clock and in summer three o'clock. It is 
useless to go out in the street to do any shopping 
before ten o'clock, as no salesmen will be found on 
duty, and the same rule applies to most of the steam- 
ship offices. Leisurely methods prevail in regard 
to the answering of telegrams of inquiry about 
steamship berths and other matters. Twenty-four 
hours must be allowed for a reply by wire which 
would be received in any part of America in two or 
three hours. 

A friend of mine suffered from the lax methods 
in many steamship offices. He saw a clerk in a 
German steamship office who assured him that a 
good steamer would leave in four days for Athens. 
He returned a day before the date of sailing only 
to be informed by another clerk that the steamer 
had been withdrawn and that the information given 
him was based on an obsolete time table. His Italian 
was not equal to the expression of his feelings. 

This same tourist had an equally unfortunate 
experience at the National Museum. Being an 
architect he wished to copy the detail of certain bas- 
reliefs from Pompeii. He applied for permission, 
showing a general letter from the American Secre- 
tary of State. Two francs and a half were demanded 
for stamps, but the permit was only issued after he 
had wasted a full half-day in waiting. Then his 
anger overcame him and he tore up the permit and 
threw it in the waste-basket, a proceeding which 
aroused much excitement among the director's staff. 

The Neapolitan takes his early breakfast of 
coffee and rolls about nine o'clock, his main break- 
fast at twelve-thirty o'clock, which is a hearty meal 

[4*1 



Scenes in Gay and Noisy Naples 
and over which he spends an hour or an hour and 
a half, while his dinner is never served before seven- 
thirty o'clock in the evening. This makes all thea- 
ters and operas very late, as the curtain does not 
rise until nine o'clock, and the performance seldom 
ends until after midnight. Cafes and restaurants 
abound, where it is the custom to take coffee and 
light refreshments about four or four-thirty o'clock 
in the afternoon, to tide over the long interval 
between breakfast and dinner. No one except the 
cabman ever seems to be in a hurry in Naples. The 
shopkeepers are extremely polite and they seem 
never to lose their tempers when ladies inspect their 
stock but do not purchase anything. 

Naples, in its own way, makes a strong appeal 
to the American tourist. The people are gay, light- 
hearted, polite and accommodating; the city and its 
surroundings are so beautiful that they are a con- 
stant delight to the eye. Even the annoyances take 
on an amusing aspect after one has recovered from 
his first irritation over the persistence of cabmen 
and street venders. It is wearing on the temper to 
be hailed by cabman after cabman when one is so 
eccentric as to prefer walking on a cold morning, or 
to have the same vender of postal cards accost you 
day after day with an unwearied persistence worthy 
of a better cause. One great nuisance the city 
authorities have practically suppressed: this is the 
indiscriminate begging which once made the tourist's 
life a burden. To-day one is seldom accosted in 
Naples' streets by mendicants, which is a great relief 
after bitter experience in Cairo and Indian cities. 



[43] 



Ancient 

Roman Life As Seen 

in Pompeii 



The tourist who reaches Naples by steamer 
or by rail receives many reminders that he 
is near Pompeii in photographs of the ruins 
and of the chief works of art found in the buried 
city. His eye is also caught on every hand by 
reproductions of these works of art in marble, lava, 
bronze and plaster. So when he sets out for Pompeii 
his mind is already stored with impressions. A 
well-built electric railroad, with remarkably poor 
cars, carries one to the ancient city in an hour and 
a half. The road passes many pretty villages along 
the shore of the bay of Naples, and it runs through 
an exceedingly fertile country, with vineyards and 
orange groves and quaint villas, built of the tufa, 
or soft stone formed by the hardening of the vol- 
canic ashes of Vesuvius. 

At Torre del Grecco fields of lava are seen, just 
as they poured down the mountain side in the last 
big eruption in 1906. In this eruption the lava 
threatened a little church and town; so the villagers 
dropped on their knees, the priest raised the cross, 
all prayed fervently, and the lava stream was stayed 
within a stone's throw of the sacred edifice. 

The vines on these hillside estates are trained to 
grow on trees, set out at regular intervals, instead of 
stakes. The drain on the land caused by these trees 
is apparently ignored because of the extreme rich- 

[44] 



Ancient Roman Life in Pompeii 

ness of the soil, the ashes from Vesuvius being full 
of potash and salts that furnish plant food. The 
oranges are mainly the small Mandarins, very sweet 
and juicy. 

On arrival at the small station of Pompeii, one 
enters a gate, and at once comes face to face with 
the ancient Roman road at the Nola gate, paved 
with many-sided blocks of lava. Here is a bit of 
antiquity brought down to us from 600 B. C. Here 
is a road, showing the ruts of Roman chariot wheels, 
just as it was in the time of Cicero. This visible 
presence of the old Roman world of which you have 
read so much comes upon you with a certain shock. 
These marks worn by the chariot wheels of Romans 
who lived two thousand, five hundred years ago are 
the most impressive things in this resurrected city 
of the ancient world. 

As you walk down to this road you see the 
enormous mass of volcanic ashes and dirt which 
covered Pompeii down to two hundred and fifty 
years ago, when excavations were first begun on an 
extensive scale. It is over twenty feet deep, so that 
the excavation of the city represents costly work. 
As you walk up the street of Nola you see the 
ruined walls of houses on either hand, and you sud- 
denly realize that here at last is a section of Roman 
life, before the time of Christ, preserved through all 
these years by the ashes of Vesuvius. 

And here it may be well to give a few fads about 
Pompeii which will serve to refresh the reader's 
memory. The city was mainly a pleasure resort of 
Wealthy Romans, and its chief structures, aside from 
the public buildings, theaters and temples, were the 
homes of rich men, elaborately decorated and orna- 
mented with many fine specimens of Greek art. 
Certain architectural remains prove that the city was 

[45] 



The Critic in the Occident 

in existence in 600 B. C, although most of the 
buildings that have come down to us unchanged 
were constructed after 63 A. D., when Pompeii was 
practically destroyed by a severe earthquake. Only 
sixteen years after this rebuilding came the final 
catastrophe, which buried the city for over seventeen 
centuries. 

The city wall was a little over a half mile long, 
with eight gates, and the town was in the form of 
an ellipse. Four wide streets traverse the city in 
one direction and two bisect it in the other direc- 
tion. These main avenues are only about twenty- 
four feet wide, including narrow sidewalks, while the 
smaller streets are merely fourteen-foot alleys, with- 
out any sidewalks. It must be borne in mind that 
the hot ashes burned away all the woodwork of the 
houses and that the weight of the wet volcanic rub- 
bish crushed in the roofs. Thus the remains are 
simply of one story, with broken pillars and columns. 

Only one house was preserved with some com- 
pleteness, but this served to give the world an ac- 
curate idea of the arrangement and decoration of a 
Roman home of the best class. Pompeii was founded 
by the Oscans; it absorbed Greek culture and re- 
mained under Greek influences until 290 B. C, 
when it fell under control of the Romans. Before 
the Christian era Pompeii had become a genuine 
Roman city. 

Pliny, the younger, left the world the best ac- 
count of the destruction of Pompeii, in which his 
uncle, the naturalist, lost his life. Read it and you 
will get a vivid idea of the terror and confusion 
which prevailed when day was turned into night, 
and a continuous shower of pumice stones and ashes 
fell for hours. Most of the inhabitants had ample 
time to escape, but of the two thousand who lost 

[46] 



Ancient Roman Life in Pompeii 

their lives the greater part probably tarried to try 
to save their property. 

For over seventeen centuries this ancient city 
remained lost to the world. In 1748 some bronze 
statues found by a peasant stimulated Charles III 
to begin the work of excavation, which was con- 
tinued without any regular plan until i860, when 
Professor Fiorelli entered upon systematic digging 
that has achieved great results. Many fine statues 
and frescoes were removed to the museum at Naples, 
but lately the sensible plan has been adopted of pre- 
serving any obje&s in the house in which they are 
found. It was Fiorelli also who devised the ingeni- 
ous scheme of preserving in plaster the forms of 
many victims of the earthquake. The wet ashes 
formed a mold about each figure, and Fiorelli poured 
liquid plaster into these natural casts and in this 
way actually preserved the figures in the agonies of 
death. In the small museum in Pompeii may be 
seen figures of men in various attitudes of death by 
strangulation; a girl lying on her face and two 
women, trying to shield their mouths from the deadly 
fumes. An extraordinary figure is that of a dog bent 
double in his death agony. 

In this museum are also preserved bread just 
from the oven, grains, meats and other food, besides 
many utensils and implements in common use. 
These plaster figures of poor victims caught in their 
death struggles give one a more vivid impression 
of the horrors of the great disaster that overwhelmed 
this pleasure-loving city than even Bulwer Lytton's 
graphic pi&ures in the Last Days of Pompeii. 

As one enters Pompeii by the street of Nola he 
is first struck by the stepping stones placed in the 
middle of the street so that people might cross in 
rainy weather without wetting their feet. These 

[47] 



The Critic in the Occident 

steps were so arranged that chariot wheels could pass 
between them, but the horses were forced to leap 
over the stones. It is between and near these step- 
ping stones that the deepest ruts are worn by the 
heavy wheels of the chariots. In many streets near 
the corners are stone drinking fountains, the water 
being brought up in lead pipes by the sidewalk and 
then allowed to pour through a spout into a square 
stone basin. On each side of the spout the hard 
stone is hollowed by the hands of thousands who 
bent over the fountain to drink. 

This street by which we entered was a street of 
shops, although the Romans used no signs to indi- 
cate their business. Several of these were bakers' 
and cook shops; others were stores for the sale of 
wine, as large earthen jars are set into marble count- 
ers. One of the largest was a laundry, with tubs of 
stone and a big furnace for heating water. 

It would be tedious to describe in detail even a 
few of the houses that have been preserved in Pom- 
peii. One typical residence, the house of the Vettii, 
will suffice for all. This house, one of the largest 
and finest in the city, was built by two brothers, 
who were once slaves, but who became rich and 
bought their freedom. The house is built in the 
regular Roman style, with a narrow passage leading 
to a vestibule, and this in turn opening into a large 
open court or atrium, with a reservoir for rain water 
in the center. On each side were small bedrooms 
for guests. Back of the atrium was a room where 
the master of the house transa&ed his business. 
The remainder of the house was sacred to the fam- 
ily. In the center was a large open court or garden, 
encircled by columns, called the peristylium, and 
opening off this were the dining-room, drawing-room, 
the room of the mistress of the house, the kitchen 

[48] 



Ancient Roman Life in Pompeii 

and the wine cellar. Decoration was lavished on the 
walls of the principal rooms, and the peristylium 
was adorned with statuettes in bronze or marble. 
Very little marble was used in decoration in Pom- 
peii, the columns being covered with stucco and the 
floors made of mosaic. 

In the house of the Vettii, uncovered about six- 
teen years ago, is seen Pompeiian mural decoration 
at its best. The finest work is in the atrium, the 
dining-room and the big room to the right of the 
peristyle. The decoration in all these rooms is 
mythological, the small figures on dadoes and friezes 
being superior in drawing and coloring to the large 
mural paintings. In the dining-room several large 
sections of the wall have been preserved and these 
show the brilliant Pompeiian red, apparently as clear 
and as brilliant as when painted over two thousand 
years ago. 

Among the large pictures are the infant Hercules 
strangling the serpents, Pentheus slain by the Bac- 
chantes, the Farnese Bull group, Apollo and Daphne, 
and Perseus and Andromeda. Beautiful as is this 
house it contains several paintings which show the 
darker side of Roman life and character. The worst 
painting in Pompeii is in the vestibule, now covered. 
In the old days it was open to the gaze of all, as 
were various paintings of hermaphrodites and of 
erotic subjects. 

The Roman phallic worship tinctures all the art 
in Pompeii and brutalizes it. It is shown in the 
stone phallus, built into the walls of many buildings, 
to keep off evil spirits. It is abundantly shown in 
the secret room of the Naples Museum, which con- 
tains an amazing collection of paintings and statu- 
ettes. From these remains the conclusion is inevi- 
table that the ancient Roman was not immoral but 

[49] 



The Critic in the Occident 

unmoral. Christianity introduced a new code of 
morals in which purity of thought was one of the 
leading features. Beside it the Pagan religions are 
unspeakably gross and vile. It was not strange that 
the Egyptian worship of Isis found many followers 
in Pompeii and that the initiation of novices degen- 
erated into the most fantastic orgies. 

Another interesting place in Pompeii is the 
House of the Faun, so named because in the court 
was found the famous bronze figure, the Dancing 
Faun, one of the most perfect specimens of ancient 
Greek art. This figure, not over two feet high, is 
alive in every muscle. The Faun, with his curly 
hair and beard, is dancing with a pure delight in 
every movement of his body, which the sculptor 
has caught with surpassing skill. Other beautiful 
bronzes found in Pompeii are the Youthful Satyr 
with a wine skin; Narcissus, which experts now say 
was intended for a youthful Dionysius listening to 
soft music, and Apollo playing a lyre. All these 
statues are of the pure Greek school and they have 
been photographed so often and reproduced in vari- 
ous materials that every American school child is 
familiar with them. 

Very interesting even to one who makes only a 
single visit to Pompeii are the thermae or baths, 
with the remains of the various rooms in which the 
sybaritic Roman of the last days of Pompeii spent 
so many hours. The Forum, adorned with rows of 
columns and with many fine statues, is very impres- 
sive, while the many temples show the strong hold 
which the worship of the gods still maintained over 
the popular imagination. A Greek theater, with an 
annex for the accommodation of gladiators, and a 
great amphitheater, capable of seating twenty thou- 
sand spectators, are also among the remains. The 

[5°] 



Ancient Roman Life in Pompeii 
work of excavation is constantly going on and new 
treasures of Greek art may be discovered any day. 
Too much praise cannot be given to the Italian 
Government for the care which it has taken of these 
remains of a civilization that is brought very near 
to us by a visit to Pompeii. 

On the return from Pompeii one should visit 
the National Museum in Naples, which is crowded 
with works of art and mural remains from the buried 
city. Days may be spent in the study of these works, 
which include invaluable specimens of the archaic 
and golden ages of Roman art, Greek portraits, 
ancient frescoes and many fine specimens of bas- 
relief from Pompeii and Herculaneum. Aside from 
the bronzes already mentioned, some notable figures 
in this museum are the Farnese Hercules, a colossal 
marble figure found in the baths of Caracalla at 
Rome, representing the hero leaning on his club and 
holding in his right hand the golden apples of the 
Hesperides; and the Farnese Bull, a group also 
found in the baths of Caracalla. No one should 
miss the head of Homer, dug up in the theater of 
Herculaneum, with its massive forehead and its re- 
fined nose and mouth, nor the bust of Julius Cassar, 
with the splendid dome of the head, and the lean 
cheeks, full of suffering. Hours may also be spent 
in profitable study of the beautiful work of Greek 
and Roman artists on glass and precious stones. 
Here are rooms full of cameos and intaglios that can- 
not be fully appreciated without a magnifying glass; 
work in gold and silver that is the despair of the 
modern jeweler; vases in endless variety, many of 
them adorned with engravings. 



[S'l 



Romance and 
Beauty of Roman 

Ruins 



Rome makes a powerful appeal to anyone fond 
of history or of ancient art. More than any 
.other city in Europe it seems to link the 
modern to the ancient world. Its atmosphere is 
charged with the romance of a history that will 
never lose its charm. Its streets and its galleries are 
filled with statues that make the glory of Greece 
live again in our prosaic days. Behind the magnifi- 
cent modern memorial to Vidlor Emmanuel stands 
the old Roman Forum, with the arch of Septimus 
Severus and portions of the temples of Vespasian 
and of Castor and Pollux. Within sight is the 
Colosseum, where the Dacian gladiator was "butch- 
ered to make a Roman holiday" and hundreds of 
Christian martyrs were thrown to the lions. 

The ruins of the magnificent palaces of the 
Caesars on the Palantine Hill look down on the new 
palaces of trade and finance that face the square of 
Vi&or Emmanuel and line the Corso. From what- 
ever point one views the city, the dome of St. Peter's 
dominates everything. Fountains abound, from the 
superb fountain of Trevi, the finest in the world, to 
the curious four fountains that give the name to the 
street that leads into the Via Quirinale, on which 
stands the Royal Palace. Every square has an his- 
toric monument, an Egyptian obelisk or a statue to 
the memory of a famous Roman. Bred among such 

[5*] 



Romance and Beauty of Roman Ruins 

surroundings, is it strange that the modern Roman 
is artistic to the tips of his fingers, or that hundreds 
of shops are devoted to the carving and sale of 
copies of the great works of Greek and Roman 
sculptors? 

This romantic blending of history and art is felt 
by the most prosaic tourist. He cannot escape it if 
he has read anything of Roman history or of the 
early days of Christianity. When he walks over the 
Via Sacra in the old Roman Forum, he is treading 
on the identical stones which Caesar trod on that 
day which saw the sudden end of his crowded life. 

When he drives out on the Appian Way he 
sees the Arch of Drusus, through which the apostles, 
Peter and Paul passed on their way to martyrdom. 
Not far away he sees the tomb of the two Scipios, 
surnamed Africanus, because they were leaders in 
the Punic wars, which ended in beating down the 
power of Carthage into the dust. Out on the Appian 
Way he may see the ruins of the Claudian aquedu6t, 
which Ruskin likened to a funeral procession de- 
parting from a nation's grave. All about the city 
are columns, pillars, statues, many of them the origi- 
nals which have come down from the days of the 
Caesars. And here also may be seen the Roman 
cypress, fit tree to stand as sentinel over the ruins 
of Imperial Rome. 

With so much beauty in Greek sculpture, with 
so much grandeur in Roman temples and palaces, 
it is difficult to give any adequate description of 
this old city by the Tiber. We know that the 
Romans fell far short of the Greeks in their sculp- 
ture and in their archite&ure; but we know that 
they gave to the world law and government in such 
enduring form that many modern nations have 
taken these for their models. We also know that 

[53] 



The Critic in the Occident 

the Romans preserved for us all that was best in 
the art of Greece. Thus the Emperor Hadrian, 
when master of the world, gathered at his villa at 
Tivoli, near Rome, five thousand of the best works 
of Greek art. Many of these were copies of origi- 
nals which were afterward lost or destroyed by fire; 
others were wrought by the greatest artists the world 
has known. Could this villa with all its wealth of 
art have been preserved for us, as Pompeii was pre- 
served by volcanic ashes, then we should have seen 
Imperial Rome as it was in its proudest days. 

To the newcomer, modern Rome, the Rome 
which has been built on the Pincian Hill, the site 
of the spacious gardens of the historian Sallust, 
seems incongruous and out of place; but he soon 
sees that this new Rome has no vital relation to 
the old city. Of the ancient Roman buildings only 
one has come down in regular daily use through all 
the centuries. This is the Pantheon, one of the 
most impressive relics of Imperial Rome. It was 
built by Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus Caesar, 
and his name still stands carved on its front; but 
we know that it was altered by Domitian, and that 
Hadrian restored it after much damage had been 
done by lightning. It is a curious fact that the 
height and diameter of the Pantheon are the same- 
one hundred and forty-two and a half feet. All 
the light comes from an aperture in the dome, 
twenty-seven feet in diameter. Entering the gloomy 
building on a rainy morning it was a shock to find 
that the middle of the floor was wet. What pre- 
served this pagan temple from spoliation was its 
use as a Christian Church. Later it was converted 
into a burial place for the illustrious dead. Here 
lie the remains of Raphael and here also repose 
King Victor Emmanuel and King Humbert. 

[54] 



Romance and Beauty of Roman Ruins 

Next to the Pantheon naturally comes the 
Forum, the center of Imperial Rome. It has been 
partly excavated and its ruins now stand just back 
of the modern buildings that crown the summit of 
the Capitoline Hill. Seen in photographs the re- 
mains of temples and columns have a huddled look, 
but in reality the sight of these ruins is singularly 
impressive. The arch of Septimus Severus bounds 
one end and the arch of Titus the other, while the 
Forum extends in width from the house of the 
Vestal Virgins to the enormous basilica erected by 
Constantine. It seems incredible as one looks down 
upon the Forum to-day that only fifty years ago all 
these relics of Imperial Rome were covered by over 
twenty feet of earth and that only what Byron 
called a "nameless column with a buried base," 
represented the wealth of ancient art that lay hid- 
den here. Even Gibbon, when he formed the plan 
of his great history while listening to the barefooted 
friars chanting in the Church of Ara Coeli, was ig- 
norant of the fact that he was treading on ground 
which covered that Forum he revived for us. 

To-day the Roman Forum is as full of interest 
as is Pompeii. Here may be traced the Via Sacra, 
with its original pavement of heavy blocks of lime- 
stone, and here also may be seen the remains of the 
small shops which were once permitted along this 
thoroughfare. The Forum was the chief meeting 
place of the people and in its best days it covered 
about twenty-five acres. Originally it had been a 
marshy lake and it was drained by the Cloaca Max- 
ima or great sewer, built by the first Tarquin. Al- 
though constructed without mortar, this old sewer 
still survives and serves to carry the drainage of the 
Forum into the Tiber. We may look down into it 
to-day from an opening in the Forum. 

[55] 



The Critic in the Occident 

Arranged in the form of a parallelogram, the 
most conspicuous things in the Forum to-day are 
the three Corinthian columns of the temple of 
Castor and Pollux, the eight columns of the temple 
of Saturn, the three columns of the temple of Ves- 
pasian, the arch of Septimus Severus, the arch of 
Titus, the temple of Faustina and the Basilica of 
Constantine. The two arches are in excellent preser- 
vation. That of Septimus Severus is battered, but 
one can still trace the bas-reliefs which record the 
victories of the Emperor in his campaigns in the 
East. The arch of Titus commemorates his con- 
quest of Jerusalem, and one of the reliefs shows the 
Emperor's triumphal entry into Rome. 

All about the Forum are scattered remains of 
famous objects. One of the most interesting is some 
portions of the rostra from which Cicero and other 
great orators delivered their speeches. The place 
gained its name from the brazen beaks of captured 
ships of war, which were brought home and nailed 
up on the orators' platform. A few steps are all 
that is left of the Basilica Julia, a massive court- 
house begun by Julius Caesar, but finished by Au- 
gustus. A heap of concrete is all that remains of 
the temple of Vesta, where the sacred fire was kept 
burning at all hours. The vestals who performed 
this service were highly honored, but the ruins of 
their house show that it was poorly located for com- 
fort. Built with an open court, it stood at the base 
of the Palatine Hill and must have been very damp 
and unwholesome. We can still see the furnace 
where charcoal made from olive and oak wood was 
burned to heat this house. 

Besides the many magnificent temples, arches 
and columns that lined the Forum, the place 
was ornamented with statues gathered from many 

[56] 




The Arch of Titu9 in the Roman Forum, With the 

Colosseum in the Distance. This Arch was Erected by Domitian 

to Commemorate the Subjection of the Jews by 

Titus in the Year 70 A. D. 



Romance and Beauty of Roman Ruins 

places. The pride that the Athenian took in the 
Acropolis was shown by the Roman in the Forum. 
It represented the splendid empire that embraced 
the entire known world. Every Roman felt that he 
had a personal interest in the place, and when any 
great public demonstration was announced all turned 
out to see what was done in the Forum. The Caesars 
spent imperial fortunes in decorating the Forum 
and in erecting the superb buildings which lined the 
Via Sacra. Gold and marble were lavished on these 
structures, which were finished in the highest style 
of art. 

On one side of the Forum was the Capitoline 
Hill, the seat of the Kings and the Republic, and 
on the other the Palatine Hill, the homes of the 
Emperors. The Capitoline is now covered by a 
museum which contains some famous art treasures, 
chief among which may be mentioned the Dying 
Gaul, misnamed the Gladiator by Byron, the Marble 
Faun and others. Here also is shown the Tarpeian 
Rock, which commemorates the treachery of the 
Roman maiden Tarpeia and the swift vengeance that 
overcame her when the enemies of Rome were given 
admittance to this stronghold. The Rock is not 
impressive, as buildings have been erected at its 
base. On the Capitoline Hill is the Church of Ara 
Coeli, which is mainly noteworthy because it pos- 
sesses a famous Bambino or holy image that is be- 
decked with gems by faithful Catholics. The shrine 
of the Bambino is filled with letters from persons 
who hope by these appeals to have their prayers 
answered. 

The Palatine Hill is a picturesque heap of ruins, 
crowned by a line of cypresses. Here are masses of 
brickwork and great arches which once formed the 
foundations of the palaces of the Caesars. Incredibly 

[57] 



The Critic in the Occident 

massive are all these remains, the brick and cement 
having defied the ravages of time. Originally the 
home of many private citizens of wealth, the Pala- 
tine was gradually absorbed by the Emperors. The 
finest remains to-day are those of the palace of 
Caligula, the Emperor who came to believe that he 
was a god and should be worshiped by the people 
as a deity. Caligula greatly enlarged the palace 
built by Domitian,and his house has been preserved 
because it was used by the Popes who succeeded to 
this property. 

The Italian Government, by its systematic ex- 
cavations, is doing much to clear up many disputed 
points in early Roman history. Back of the house 
of Livia, on the summit of the Palatine Hill, the ex- 
cavations have recently uncovered an ancient well 
of plainly defined Mykenian work, showing that the 
Greeks from the site of ancient Troy preceded the 
Romans in this settlement on the banks of the 
Tiber. Here may be seen the well and the peculiar 
curbing which the best archaeologists agree was the 
work of Mykenians, whose ancient cities on the 
windy plain of Troy were unearthed by Professor 
Schliemann. One of the impressive sights on the 
Palatine Hill is the series of massive arches built by 
Septimus Severus on the southeastern end of the 
hill to make more room for his palace. These arches 
served as the foundations for this imperial residence 
which has been absolutely destroyed. They are so 
finely built that they seem to be the ruins of the 
palace itself. 



[58] 



Art in 
St. Peter's and the 

Vatican 



St. Peter's of Rome is the greatest religious 
shrine in Christendom, as it is the largest 
church edifice in the world. Its fine dome, the 
work of Michelangelo, is the central feature in 
every view of Rome, precisely as the Washington 
monument appears in every view of our national 
capital. Two enormous colonnades form a half- 
circle in which are grouped an Egyptian obelisk and 
two artistic fountains. The whole square is paved 
with stone and many wide stone steps lead up to 
the entrance of the church. Your eye is satisfied 
with the sweep of the colonnades, surmounted by 
fine statues, the beauty of the fountains and the 
spaciousness of the plaza; but when you enter the 
church itself, the unexpected size of it hits you like 
a blow. You may have mastered all the dimensions, 
but figures are worthless before these soaring arches 
and this tremendous dome, which is so well pro- 
portioned that it gives no hint of its great size. 

A friend with whom I first saw St. Peter's said 
this dome seemed to him no larger than St. Paul's 
in London; yet two domes such as that constructed 
by Sir Christopher Wren could be placed in this. 
It is the same with the colossal nave. Entering the 
door on a dark morning, the nave seems to lose it- 
self in the dim shadows of the dome. On each side 
is another nave as large as an ordinary church. Far 



[59] 



The Critic in the Occident 

in the distance gleams the circle of ever-burning 
lamps about the tomb of St. Peter. On every hand 
are pillars of marble, richly ornamented with de- 
signs in gold, silver, malachite, onyx and other 
beautiful stones. All around are the tombs of Popes, 
wrought in marble and bronze, with panels filled 
with mosaic copies of famous masterpieces. 

When you look up into Michelangelo's dome 
it gives you no idea of its height to say that it is 
four hundred and ninety-three feet in the clear. 
The only way to get any conception of this tre- 
mendous height is to ascend the dome and look 
down from the topmost gallery. From this point 
of vantage people walking over the floor below 
look like ants. Here also may be studied the splen- 
did mosaics designed by the great sculptor. Be- 
neath the dome is a massive bronze canopy covering 
the papal altar over the tomb of St. Peter. Ninety- 
three lamps, always burning, are arranged along the 
marble balustrade around the tomb. 

To the right, in the nave, is the bronze statue 
of St. Peter, with the great toe of the right foot 
worn smooth by the kisses of thousands of devout 
Catholics. To the left, in the transept, are confes- 
sional boxes for all the nations of the earth. It is 
borne in upon you that this is a sanctuary for Catho- 
lics of the whole world, to which many famous art- 
ists have lent their skill and upon which over fifty 
million dollars have been lavished. Yet usually this 
vast church is well nigh empty, the most regular 
and enthusiastic visitors being tourists of all nations 
with Baedekers in hand. 

The decoration of St. Peter's would be called 
over-florid in any other church edifice, but here gold 
and marble and mosaics of the most beautiful stones 
have been so lavishly used that each adds to the 

[60] 



St. Peter's and the Vatican 

effectiveness of the others. Among the art treasures, 
the most famous is the marble Pieta by Michel- 
angelo, carved when the sculptor was only twenty- 
three years old. The face of the Virgin is very 
youthful, but touched with heavy sorrow, and the 
figure of Christ is full of pathos. 

Canova has contributed two works of the great- 
est beauty-the tomb of Pope Clement XIII and 
the monument to the Stuarts. It will surprise most 
readers to learn that three of the unfortunate Stuart 
family are buried here in a tomb for which Canova 
designed two angels guarding the gate, figures that 
have never been surpassed in their union of majesty 
and grace. Thorwaldsen has also furnished a strik- 
ing design for the tomb of Pius VII, and Bernini 
fashioned the bronze canopy that rises above the 
high altar. 

St. Peter's was built on the spot where the great 
apostle was crucified by Nero's executioners. Here, 
where rises the greatest church in all the world, 
was the Circus of Nero, that witnessed the torture 
and the cruel death of hundreds of the early Chris- 
tians. St. Peter had been confined in the Mamer- 
tine prison, one of the ugliest dungeons of old 
Rome, near the Forum. It was in this underground 
hole, walled about with ancient stone, that Jugurtha 
was starved and that many other prisoners of the 
Caesars were done to death in the most cruel way. 

Here also is a spring of pure water bubbling 
up out of the floor, a miracle wrought by St. Peter 
that he might secure water with which to baptize 
his jailer whom he had converted. This gloomy 
Mamertine prison gives you a realization of the 
atrocious cruelty of the pagan Emperors of Rome, 
just as St. Peter's makes you appreciate the religion 
that softened men's hearts and made love the trium- 

[6,] 



The Critic in the Occident 

phant force of conquest, greater than the swords of 
all the Roman legions. 

The Vatican was used first for state ceremonies, 
but, after the return of the Popes from Avignon it 
became the papal residence. Nicholas V, in the 
middle of the fifteenth century, conceived the idea 
of making the Vatican a superb palace for housing 
the Cardinals and all the public offices of the church. 
That idea was carried out by his successors, each of 
whom has added to its magnificence. 

The result is a little city of buildings surround- 
ing St. Peter's, three hundred and eighty-four yards 
long by two hundred and fifty-six yards broad, with 
over eleven thousand halls and chambers and twenty 
courts. The main entrance to the Vatican is at the 
end of the right colonnade of St. Peter's, but since 
the papal government was deprived of temporal 
power nearly all visitors have been forced to pass 
around to the left and back of St. Peter's to gain 
entrance to the galleries. The first way is only 
about one hundred yards; the other fully three- 
quarters of a mile. On rainy days it is a sad sight 
to see tourists of all races trudging through the wet 
because they are barred from this direft entrance. 

The most attractive part of the Vatican collec- 
tions is the museum of sculpture, which contains a 
few great masterpieces and an enormous mass of 
other statuary which is worth little attention. The 
average tourist wearies himself by trying to see 
everything. The result is that he has only a con- 
fused recollection of interminable lines of marble 
and bronze figures. Among the great things, the 
best is the Apoxyomenos or scraper, a Greek ath- 
lete scraping the oil from his right arm. The statue 
is believed to be a copy from Lysippus, one of the 
foremost Greek sculptors, and it is so perfect in 

[62] 



St. Peter's and the Vatican 

every way that one never tires of studying it. The 
Antinous, from an original by Praxiteles, and the 
Apollo Belvedere have the same lightness and grace 
as the Greek athlete; they embody in enduring 
marble the strength and beauty which everyone 
admires, and they rest and satisfy the eye by their 
perfect proportions and their immortal youth. 

A great contrast to these is the group of The 
Laocoon, a tragedy in stone, which seems just as 
poignant to-day as when the unknown sculptor 
carved it from a block of marble. The agony in 
the father's face as he realizes that the serpent is 
too powerful to struggle against, touches the heart. 
This figure of the poor father, with tense muscles 
and despairing face, seems to typify the lot of so 
many hopeless people in their fruitless struggle 
against misfortune, sickness and sorrow. Canova 
has contributed three statues to this gallery, but, 
though they are wonderfully clever, you feel in- 
stinctively that the modern sculptor had not grasped 
the secret of the old masters of the craft. 

Aside from the statuary, the other great things 
in the Vatican are the Sistine Chapel and the Stanze 
of Raphael. Pope Sixtus IV decided to have a 
chapel decorated by the greatest artists of his day. 
The result is the most sumptuous room in Rome, 
if not in the world. Perugine, Botticelli and Ghir- 
landajo were among the minor artists who lent their 
genius to the decoration of the walls and the panels; 
but it was Michelangelo who made the chapel 
unique. He covered the ceiling of this chapel with 
heroic figures of prophets and sibyls, and he pictured 
in a great series the creation, the fall of man and the 
prospect of redemption. The figures of Michel- 
angelo are drawn with the same power that shines 
through the stone figures which adorn the tombs of 

[63] 



The Critic in the Occident 

the Medici in Florence. No other artist ever drew 
with the same combination of demoniac force and 
perfect certainty of form. 

This work on the chapel ceiling is far finer than 
anything in "The Last Judgment," the enormous 
fresco that covers the end of the chapel. What this 
picture may have been before it was blackened by 
time and smoke, no one can say, but I doubt the 
sincerity of those who indulge in superlatives to- 
day about its grandeur and impressiveness. At least 
they must have a powerful imagination to get any 
pleasure or any thrills from this gloomy picture of 
a denunciatory Christ dealing out punishment to a 
wicked world. Only with the aid of a strong glass 
can one get any satisfaction from this fresco. 

The Stanze or Halls of Raphael, which you 
enter after viewing the Sistine Chapel, were executed 
on the order of Julius II, who desired some fine 
decoration for his four living-rooms. In a series of 
allegorical and religious pictures Raphael covered 
these walls with the rich fruit of his imagination. 
The leaders of literature and of religion are depicted 
as well as significant events in the history of the 
church. These pictures give the impression of a 
firmly centered, wholesome genius who found this 
world a good one to live in. There is nothing mor- 
bid nor gloomy in the whole series, while the pict- 
ures reveal marvelous command over all the tech- 
nical difficulties of the artist's work. 

In the Vatican picture gallery is another paint- 
ing by Raphael which is worthy of study. It is the 
famous "Transfiguration" on which the painter 
was at work when death came, after a brief illness. 
Of all the religious paintings that I saw in Rome 
this pleased me the best. It is full of spirituality 
and the coloring is as fine as in any canvas of Titian. 

[64] 



St. Peter's and the Vatican 

Throughout Rome are scattered a half dozen 
galleries of pictures, each of which contains a few 
masterpieces. For the sake of the tourist, it would 
be a boon if the really great paintings from each of 
these galleries could be gathered in one central 
place. In the Borghese gallery is Titian's "Sacred 
and Profane Love," for which Pierpont Morgan is 
said to have offered one million dollars. Although 
the coloring is extraordinarily beautiful the picture 
in itself does not seem to me to rank with many 
masterpieces of other painters. In this same gallery 
is one of Canova's best pieces of sculpture— the 
well-known, life-size statue of Princess Borghese, 
who was the beautiful Pauline Bonaparte. 

In the Barberini gallery is one great picture— 
Guido Reni's portrait of Beatrice Cenci, a haunting 
face that never seems to look twice the same. The 
painter has given this girl, who killed her father, 
heavy-lidded eyes, which seem ready to fill with 
tears, but there is something mysterious and elusive 
about the expression of her face, as though she 
longed to tell her secret, yet dared not break her 
silence. If we had portraits such as this of all the 
famous historical personages of Rome, it would be 
much easier to understand their actions. 

In the time of Trajan, Rome is said to have had 
thirteen hundred fountains. How many there are 
to-day I know not, but you seem to come upon 
them in the most unexpected places. The finest of 
all is the Fountain of Trevi, built by Clement XII 
and supplied with water by the Acqua Vergine, 
which once brought water to the Baths of Agrippa. 
Another beautiful fountain is that of the Nymphs, 
in front of the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian, and 
not far from the railway station. This fountain is 
one of the first things seen on entering Rome. 

[65] 



The Colosseum 

and Along the Appian 

Way 



The ancient pagan remains in Rome seem to 
appeal to the average tourist far more than 
the churches and the relics of the early Chris- 
tian era. Perhaps this is because Roman history in 
the days of the Caesars was so filled with romance 
that it impresses itself upon the imagination more 
vividly than any other era in the annals of the 
world. Never before was centralization of power 
and wealth carried to so high a degree; never before 
nor since has one man exercised despotic rule over 
so many millions. Augustus, Domitian, Trajan, 
Hadrian-to take only a few of the typical builders 
among the Emperors— lavished millions in treasure 
upon palaces and public buildings; they gathered 
statues from Greece, obelisks from Egypt and beauti- 
ful marbles from many lands. Gold and ivory and 
precious stones were freely used in the decoration 
of their buildings. 

It is this excess of luxury, joined to absolute 
power of life or death over millions of people, that 
has so powerful an effect upon the modern imagina- 
tion. Hence, of all the buildings in Rome that 
have come down from the davs of the Caesars, the 
one which satisfies the eye and the mind most com- 
pletely is the Colosseum, that gigantic amphitheater 
which probably witnessed more bloodshed and mis- 
ery than any other place in Rome. Familiar as are 



[66] 



The Colosseum and the Appian Way 
the ruins of this great Flavian amphitheater, through 
photographs and prints, the building itself is one of 
the most impressive in all Rome, through sheer size 
and massiveness. 

The vandal hands of Popes and others have 
stripped the Colosseum of the marbles that covered 
its walls, but nothing can harm the magnificent pro- 
portions of this great open-air theater. We are told 
that it had seats for seventy thousand spectators, 
and Gibbon gives many details of the arrangement 
of the tiers of seats and the provisions for the com- 
fort of the patricians who filled the choice places 
near the arena. To-day about half the outer wall is 
standing, which permits us to see the four stories, 
with Doric columns on the first, Ionic on the second, 
Corinthian on the third and Corinthian pilasters on 
the fourth story. 

Twelve thousand captive Jews are said to have 
been employed in building this huge structure and 
they certainly did their work well. Left merely to 
the elements, the Colosseum would be to-day among 
the best preserved of the ruins of Rome; but used 
as a quarry for hundreds of years, the wonder is 
that one stone remains upon another. As it is, the 
massive limestone slabs are dug full of holes, the 
marks left by those who searched for the bronze or 
iron clamps used to fasten the stones together. 
Several millions have been spent by Popes in re- 
storing various parts of the Colosseum and the 
Italian Government has done good work in excavat- 
ing the interior, so that the ancient arrangements 
for providing entertainments are now made clear. 

Here may be seen the underground passages by 
which the lions and tigers were driven into the 
arena, and here are the small rooms where Chris- 
tians and other captives were kept until the time 

[67] 



The Critic in the Occident 

came for them to be exposed in the great amphi- 
theater. Standing in the center of the arena and 
looking up at these tiers on tiers of seats, one may 
easily understand the fear that must have gripped 
the hearts even of the professional gladiators when 
they surveyed the vast and unsympathetic audience 
that soon would decide their fate, should they chance 
to be defeated. And what imagination can conceive 
the cold horror of the defenseless Christians when 
they saw the savage lions bounding toward them. 
These stones of the wall that encircles the arena 
could tell some grisly tales of bloodshed, cruelty 
and unspeakable terror. Walking about this old 
arena brings you very close to the days of the Fla- 
vians and the Antonines; it makes history warm 
and vital. 

Not far from the Colosseum begins the Appian 
Way, that great highway which led from Rome to 
Brindisi, by way of Capri. You pass through the 
Porta Capena out upon this old road, which has 
been cleared for a distance of over ten miles. It is 
only about twenty-six feet wide, with a curbstone on 
each side, but so well was it paved with hexagonal 
slabs of lava that some of the old pavement remains 
to-day, as it was in the time of the Cassars. 

For several miles out of Rome the Appian Way 
was lined with tombs, the ruins of which may be 
seen on either hand. The Roman law was very 
stringent in prohibiting burial inside the city walls, 
so the custom prevailed of erecting tombs along the 
public roads near the city. 

A short distance from the Porta Capena a side 
road leads up to the colossal ruins of the Baths of 
Caracalla, which are a mile in circumference. Only 
the massive walls and arches of these baths now re- 
main, but these impress one as deeply as the Colos- 

[68] 



The Colosseum and the Appian Way 

seum with the lavish extravagance of the Roman 
Emperors. These walls are from ten to fifteen feet 
thick and they rise to a height of one hundred and 
forty feet. Many arches are from sixty to eighty 
feet high. You walk through the enormous chamb- 
ers which Caracalla provided for the luxurious bath- 
ing of sixteen hundred people. 

In the center was a spacious recreation ground, 
where hundreds indulged in athletic sports, and 
Gibbon tells us that this place was really a great 
club, where the poorest Roman citizen could find 
entertainment all day with the expenditure of only 
a few cents. For years the arches and walls of these 
baths were overgrown with trees and vines. On one 
of these arches Shelley wrote the greater part of his 
Prometheus Unbound. 

Christian and pagan dead jostled one another 
out on this Appian Way. When the persecution of 
the Christians was at its height it became the custom 
for this seel to quarry subterranean passages in the 
soft volcanic rock and in these to bury their dead. 
These burial places came to be called catacombs. 
Many miles of them extend around Rome, but two 
of the largest are on the Appian Way. In the cata- 
combs of St. Calixtus fifteen Popes and two hundred 
thousand Christians found burial. Provided with a 
wax taper one may descend into the catacomb of St. 
Calixtus and walk through hundreds of feet of under- 
ground passages, with niches on both sides in which 
once rested the bodies of Christians. 

One of the most interesting places on the Appian 
Way is the Quo Vadis Church, said to be erected 
on the spot where St. Peter, fleeing from Rome, 
saw a vision of the Lord. Peter, who had escaped 
from the Romans and found liberty very sweet, 
asked Jesus: "Lord, whither goest thou?" The 

[69] 



The Critic in the Occident 

answer came, as the figure disappeared: "To be 
recrucified in Rome." Peter accepted this as a re- 
proof and returned to Rome and martyrdom. This 
spot was marked by a chapel and a marble slab on 
which were the impression of the feet of the Lord. 
The original slab is now in the basilica of St. Sebas- 
tian, but a replica is in this little church, with a copy 
of Michelangelo's fine statue of Christ, with the 
cross. This legendary incident furnished the main 
motive for Sienkiewicz's romance, Quo Vadis> and 
for Wilson Barrett's play, The Sign of the Cross. 

Beyond this church is the finest tomb on the 
Appian Way, the burial place of Cecilia Metella, 
daughter of Quintus Metellus, who conquered Crete, 
and wife of Crassus, the Rockefeller of his time. It 
looks like a circular fort, massively built of traver- 
tin stone, and it may be seen for many miles. 
Originally it was covered with white marble, but 
this was stripped off during the Middle Ages to 
make lime, the lower slabs being removed by Pope 
Clement XII in order to build the Fountain of 
Trevi in Rome. Although used as a fortress in the 
thirteenth century, this tomb has survived practi- 
cally as it was originally built, with the exception 
of the loss of the conical roof. The irony of fate 
has given to Cecilia Metella a tomb that has sur- 
vived the splendid palaces of Augustus and Nero, 
but it has left not a single line about the woman to 
whose memory this superb memorial was reared. 
Lord Byron, in Childe Harold^ touches on this 
curious feature in some noble lines, which are well 
worth reading. In fact it will pay anyone to read 
what Byron wrote on the famous things which he 
saw in Rome. Though he spent much time in 
dalliance with the beautiful Countess Guiccioli, he 
saw Rome thoroughly, and no one in verse or prose 

[7°] 



Michelangelo's Heroic Statue of the Young David, 

Now in the Cupola of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. It 

Stood in Front of the Palazzo Vecchio Until 1873, But 

its Place There is Now Filled With a Plaster Copy 



The Colosseum and the Appian Way 

has ever surpassed his word-pictures of the ruins of 
the Imperial City. 

Beyond this tomb the Appian Way extends 
straight across the desolate Campagna toward the 
south. The eye can trace it for about ten miles, a 
white line cutting through a great expanse of green. 
Nothing breaks the monotony of this vast sea of 
verdure but the ruins of the Claudian aqueduct that 
once brought millions of gallons of water to Rome 
to supply the baths and fountains of the Caesars. 
These crumbling arches extend for miles across the 
Campagna and give a human touch to what would 
otherwise be a desolate waste. Rome is the only 
city that I know which has no suburbs. Here is 
no gradual change from busy thoroughfares to vil- 
lage quiet, but one passes suddenly from the bustle 
and life of a great city to the solitude of a desert. 
All around the city stretches this great level plain, 
without trees, without houses, without life. 

On the return from the Appian Way it is cus- 
tomary to stop at the great church of St. Paul be- 
yond the walls. This huge basilica, which is scarcely 
less impressive than St. Peter's, was erected on the 
spot where the body of St. Paul was buried, after 
his decapitation by order of Nero. The main nave 
is decorated with pillars of granite which cost one 
thousand dollars each, and in the center is the papal 
altar, its bronze pavilion supported by four alabaster 
pillars from Assouan, Egypt, a gift from Mehemet 
AH. This pavilion covers the place where St. Paul 
and the Apostle Timothy are buried and it was 
here that Ignatius de Loyola and his followers took 
the vows of the Society of Jesus. One of the feat- 
ures of the church is the portraits of all the Popes, 
from Peter down to Pius X. The roof is especially 
rich being covered with gilding. 

[7 '!] 



The Critic in the Occident 

On the way back from St. Paul's it is well to 
stop at the English and American cemetery, where 
may be seen the graves of Shelley and Keats. Shel- 
ley loved Italy, but it was his fate to be drowned 
in the bay of Spezia. He left directions in his 
will for the cremation of his body, and Trelawney 
has given a graphic account of these funeral rites 
in classic style, performed under his direction in the 
presence of Lord Byron. 

The most conspicuous thing in the cemetery is 
the pyramid of Caius Cestus, made of concrete and 
brick and faced with marble. The pyramid is ex- 
actly one-twentieth of the size of Cheops, and it 
was probably designed by Cestus to be an enduring 
monument to him. To the right of this pyramid 
is the tomb of Keats, which will appeal to all lovers 
of The Eve of St. Agnes and the Ode On a Grecian 
Urn because of its pathos: 

This grave 

Contains all that was mortal 

of 

A young English poet 

Who 

On his death-bed, 

In the bitterness of his heart 

At the malicious power of his enemies, 

Desired 

These words to be written on his tombstone: 

"Here lies one whose name was writ in water." 

February 27, 1824. 

If the tourist has only a short time to spend in 
Rome he will find it profitable to attend the lectures 
delivered by several professors amid the scenes 
which they describe. It was my good fortune to 
hear several lectures by Professor L. Reynaud, an 
accomplished Roman scholar, who is an admirable 
talker with a genuine gift of humor. 

[7*1 



Hadrian's 

Tomb and His Villa 

at Tivoli 



In any view of Rome one of the most conspicu- 
ous objects is the round fortress known as the 
Castle of St. Angelo. It has come down straight 
from the time of Hadrian, who planned it for his 
tomb. The Emperor was buried in it, as well as 
five of his successors, but a century after his death 
it was converted into a fortress, and as such it was 
the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the 
Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Hadrian built 
this tomb with massive walls, which have defied 
Goths and Vandals. The marble carving was re- 
moved as well as the beautiful marble statues that 
once adorned the top of the walls, but the remainder 
of the building stands to-day as it was ereded by 
the greatest builder among the Romans. 

The Borgia family built an underground pas- 
sage from the castle to the Vatican and the Popes 
took advantage of this to seek safety in the castle 
when they were hard pressed by their enemies. 
The castle is now one of the most interesting 
museums in Rome, as many relics have been pre- 
served here of famous prisoners within its walls. 
You are shown the cell in which Beatrice Cenci and 
her mother spent their last days before the final 
condemnation, as well as the cell that held the in- 
genious Benvenuto Cellini. From the appearance of 
the walls and the door of this cell it is plain that 



[73] 



The Critic in the Occident 

the famous sculptor was permitted to escape, as 
without aid he never could have freed himself from 
this living tomb. 

Here are preserved the various instruments of 
torture which were used by Popes and others to 
force confessions from prisoners. Pope Sixtus IV 
has the evil reputation of having retained a doctor 
to keep prisoners alive in order that they might en- 
dure the full limit of torture. The cells and oubli- 
ettes in this castle give one a vivid idea of the 
cruelty with which prisoners were treated in those 
days when the common people had no rights. The 
whole place reeks with blood and lust. 

One of the best excursions outside Rome is to 
Tivoli and Hadrian's villa. Tivoli was celebrated 
in the early history of Rome as the place where the 
enemies of that city always gathered, but finally the 
Romans had their revenge. They conquered the 
place in 338 B. C, and after that Tivoli became one 
of the most popular of summer resorts and near it 
were built the villas of prominent Romans. To- 
day it is a picturesque hill city, with a portion of an 
old Roman temple of Hercules. 

The Arno used to pass through scores of holes 
in the rocks and form more than one hundred water- 
falls just below Tivoli, but when Gregory XVI was 
in the papal chair, a landslide occurred at Tivoli 
which caused many deaths. The Pope decided that 
the waterfalls had undermined the earth and thus 
led to the disaster; so he had the waters diverted 
into a single channel and by boring a tunnel through 
the rock he converted many small cascades into one 
fine waterfall. Over on the other side of the canyon, 
beyond the waterfall, is a house which stands on the 
site of the villa of Horace, the Latin poet, who has 
sung of the beauty of Tivoli and its falling waters. 

[74] 



Hadrian's Tomb and Villa at Tivoli 

Near Tivoli is the Villa d'Este, one of the most 
beautiful of Italian gardens. Originally, in the mid- 
dle of the eleventh century, it was laid out for Card- 
inal Ippolito d'Este, who was the son of the Duke 
of Ferrara and Lucrezia Borgia. The grounds are 
arranged on a side hill, and from the terrace on the 
highest level a superb view may be had of the whole 
Campagna stretching away to Rome. The dome 
of St. Peter's is clearly visible, as is the old Roman 
road which leads to the city. 

The glory of this villa is several rows of mag- 
nificent cypress trees, the tallest in the world, planted 
in the year that Columbus discovered America. 
They seem to flourish in this damp soil and their dark 
green foliage fits in with the amber-colored statuary 
and the moss-grown marble balustrades. The villa 
has passed into the possession of the Austrian royal 
family, and it is badly cared for. The gardens give 
one a good idea of the magnificence of Italian life 
in the sixteenth century. 

Not far from Tivoli are the ruins of Hadrian's 
villa, one of the most remarkable sights in Italy. 
Hadrian was the greatest traveler of all the Roman 
Emperors and when he decided to retire as the 
active head of the empire, he amused himself by 
duplicating the most interesting things he had seen 
in his journeys. In this villa he reproduced the 
Academy, the Lyceum and the Poekile of Athens, 
a theater at Corinth, the Temple of Serapis at 
Canopus and the pyramid of Gizeh. In walking 
over the ruins one may see the remains of the 
Greek theater and of many other buildings. The 
whole place feeds the imagination and gives one a 
glimpse of the splendors of Imperial Rome. 



[75] 



Florence 

and Its Many Art 

Treasures 



Any lover of Dante and Petrarch, of Michel- 
/\ angelo and Raphael cannot fail to feel a 
X JLthrill when first entering Florence, the Italian 
city which most completely represents the beauty 
and the spirituality of the Renaissance. And, when 
it is added that this was the favorite field of Savon- 
arola and the scene of his cruel death, nothing more 
is needed to commend it. Florence is beautifully 
situated on the banks of the Arno, along which the 
train runs from Arezzo. The city is surrounded by 
hills which bear a striking resemblance to the hills 
about San Francisco, in their rounded forms as well 
as in their coloring. 

When you leave the railroad station and drive 
through the city, its mediaeval character impresses 
you. Here are solid stone pavements which have 
been in continuous use since the times of the Medici. 
Here are massive palaces, with small grilled lower 
windows, that could easily be converted into for- 
tresses to withstand a long siege. Your carriage 
passes an open gallery of sculpture and a great, for- 
tress-like building with a tower, which you recog- 
nize from the pictures you have seen, as the Palazzo 
Vecchio, the home of the Medici and the scene of 
Savonarola's imprisonment and torture. In front 
of this grim palace Savonarola and two other priests 
were burned to death by the same Florentine mob 

[76] 



Florence and Its Art Treasures 

that only a few months before hung breathless on 
the eloquent words of this Dominican friar. Michel- 
angelo's statue of David and Benvenuto Cellini's 
Perseus holding up the head of Medusa now look 
down on the place of death of this monk, who tried 
to induce the gay Florentines to lead better lives. 

The first walk around Florence is one long to 
be remembered. From my hotel it was only a short 
distance to the Duomo, or Cathedral, with Giotto's 
Campanile and Baptistry. All these buildings are 
of black and white marble, the white badly black- 
ened by the weather. The facade of the Cathedral 
is imposing, although it is comparatively new; but 
the Campanile, designed by Giotto, is the finest 
thing architecturally to be seen in Florence. Ruskin 
declared it was the only building in the world which 
could not be improved in any detail. 

In going from the Piazza del Duomo down to 
the Piazza della Signoria you pass through a num- 
ber of narrow, crowded streets. The houses are tall 
and massively built, but the finest is the Strozzi 
Palace, built of rustic granite. This palace was 
erected for one of the great enemies of the Medici 
and it stood several sieges. In the end the Medici 
overthrew the Strozzi and this palace passed into 
other hands. The Piazza della Signoria is a large 
square, paved with stone slabs. On one side rises 
the Palazzo Vecchio, with its impressive tower. It 
was originally used by the officers of the Florentine 
republic, but afterward became the home of Cosimo 
I, the founder of the Medicean dynasty. 

On the lower side of the square is the Loggia 
dei Lanzi, an open portico, beautified with master- 
pieces of statuary in marble and bronze. It was de- 
signed as a place for public functions or a rostrum 
for speakers. Here are Cellini's bronze statue of 

[77] 



The Critic in the Occident 

Perseus holding up the severed head of Medusa, 
Donatello's bronze Judith and Holofernes, the 
marble group of the Rape of the Sabines by Bologna, 
Menelaus with the body of Patroclus, and Bologna's 
Hercules and Nessus. Three of these are master- 
pieces of the first class. 

In front of the palace is now a copy of Michel- 
angelo's heroic figure of the young David and 
Bologna's bronze equestrian statue of Cosimo I. 
This massing of these masterpieces in bronze and 
marble is characteristic of Florence, whose makers 
were eager that it should be the most beautiful of 
Italian cities. Beyond the Loggia is the long and 
splendid facade of the Uffizi Palace, now one of 
the greatest art galleries in the world. 

Florence is built on both sides of the Arno and 
the quays which run along the water's edge are 
called Lungarno. One of the finest, bears the name 
of Amerigo Vespucci, the navigator who had the 
honor of having the continent Columbus discov- 
ered, named after him. The Arno is carefully walled 
up on each side and is spanned by six bridges, the 
most picturesque of which is the Ponte Vecchio. 
Near this bridge the old houses on the south bank 
of the river, form one of the most picturesque views. 
They rise directly from the water to the height of 
six or seven stories, with many curious buttresses 
and balconies. With their tiled roofs and discolored 
walls they present a picture of mediaeval homes such 
as may be seen in few European cities. Here along 
the south bank of this river everything is mellowed 
with age; nothing seems to have been retouched for 
hundreds of years. Over the river on the north 
side are the spick and span new quays and the great 
hotels built to accommodate the globe-trotter who 
thinks he can "do" Florence in two days. On the 

[78] 



Florence and Its Art Treasures 

south side of the river are many narrow streets, 
not over ten feet wide, which follow the winding 
course of the river. The houses are very old, with 
few windows on the street floor, and with massive 
oaken doors, studded with wrought iron spikes. 

One of the buildings in Florence which makes 
the deepest impression on the stranger is the 
Palazzo Vecchio. It was long the residence of the 
Medici, that remarkable family which owed its rise 
to its success in medicine and which was not ashamed 
to place pills on its coat of arms. Although Flor- 
ence was nominally a republic, Cosimo de Medici 
ruled it like a despot and his successors wielded the 
same power. But these Medici, although they gave 
the people no share in the government, did every- 
thing in their power to beautify the city and make 
it the home of art and literature. Under Lorenzo 
the Magnificent, this reached its height, and to him 
the Renaissance in Italy owed much of its splendor. 

Here in this Palazzo Vecchio may be found 
works by many famous artists. The later decoration 
by Vasari and others is very striking. One of the 
finest rooms is now used by the Council of Flor- 
ence. Higher up in the tower is a room, with a 
small window facing the south, in which Savonarola 
was confined during the few days before he was 
burned at the stake. Down in the square, almost in 
the shadow of the equestrian figure of Cosimo, the 
ruler to whom he had refused absolution, is a bronze 
plate in the pavement which marks the spot of the 
martyrdom of Savonarola. Any reader of Romola 
will recall the two great scenes in that novel-one in 
which the fiery monk induced the great multitude 
that hung on his words to make a bonfire of all 
their ornaments; the other, which pictures the ter- 
rible death of the man who saved Romola from 

[79] 



The Critic in the Occident 
spiritual despair. George Eliot's historical romance 
is worth careful reading for its beautiful pictures of 
Florence and for its study of the spiritual relations 
of an unselfish woman and a priest, who was con- 
sumed with desire to make the world better. 

The Piazzo del Duomo contains three structures 
that together have made Florence famous for over 
five hundred years. The first is the Baptistry, an 
octagonal structure, which served as a cathedral 
until the building of the Duomo in the fourteenth 
century. The Baptistry, in which all children born 
in Florence must be baptized, is mainly noteworthy 
to-day because of its three magnificent bronze doors, 
the two finest of which were made by Ghiberti. One 
represents, in twenty-eight sections, the history of 
Christ, while the other and better known depicts ten 
scenes from sacred history. Architects have seen in 
the construction of the Baptistry and its dome the 
influence of the Pantheon at Rome. The Cathedral 
or Duomo was ordered built by a popular vote in 
1294, but it was not completed until 1436. The 
dome was executed by Brunelleschi, who secured 
the work by public competition. The facade of the 
Cathedral is modern, but, despite the criticisms of 
many experts, it seems to me that it fits the general 
design of the building and is unusually impressive. 

Adjoining the Cathedral is the Campanile or 
bell tower, designed by Giotto. Ruskin, in his 
Seven Lamps of Architecture^ declares that power 
and beauty exist in their highest degree only in this 
building. The Campanile is two hundred and sev- 
enty-six feet in height, a square structure of four 
stories, with beautiful windows ornamented with 
Italian Gothic tracery, and with many statues and 
bas-reliefs. From whatever side one views the 
Campanile it satisfies the eye completely. 

[80] 



Florence and Its Art Treasures 

Florence is as famous for its pictures as for its 
architecture and its statuary. Three buildings house 
three great collections. The first, in the Uffizi Pal- 
ace designed by Vasari, is the greatest. The finest 
bit of sculpture in these galleries is the Venus de 
Medici, found in Hadrian's villa. Of the paintings 
it is impossible to do more than touch upon some 
of the greatest. Here may be seen a whole room 
full of Sandro Botticelli's masterpieces, of which the 
greatest is Venus rising from a sea-shell. Cor- 
reggio has several superb pictures, among which I 
liked best "The Repose in Egypt," and Michel- 
angelo is seen in only one canvas— a fine Holy 
Family with splendid coloring and with a number 
of nude figures in the background that are perfectly 
drawn, but have no connection with the picture. Of 
Titian, Tintoretto, Leonardo and other masters 
there are several specimens, besides a large number 
of pictures of the German and Flemish schools, in- 
cluding some interesting specimens of Albert Diirer's 
work. In fact, this series of richly ornamented 
rooms is so full of fine statuary and pictures that it 
would require many days to study them as they 
deserve. I spent two days in this gallery and felt 
well repaid for my time and effort. 

A long gallery which extends across the Arno 
joins the Uffizi and the Pitti galleries. The latter 
are in the Pitti Palace, built in the fifteenth century 
for Luca Pitti, one of the bitter enemies of the 
Medici. Pitti boasted that he would have the finest 
house of any private citizen of Florence, but it was 
not many years before misfortunes fell upon him 
and a century later the palace passed into the hands 
of the wife of Cosimo I. The long gallery which 
you walk through on the way from the Uffizi to 
the Pitti Palace is lined with portraits of the Popes 

[81] 



The Critic in the Occident 

and of many other famous people, many of them 
hung in such dark places that they cannot be seen 
even on sunshiny days. The Pitti gallery has a 
dozen of Raphael's works, among which the finest 
are two Madonnas, the portraits of Leo X and Julius 
II, and the picture of the painter's sweetheart, 
whom tradition has incorrectly represented as a 
baker's daughter. The face of this woman shows 
rare refinement and charm. 

Titian is represented here by more than a half- 
dozen masterpieces. The finest is the heads of 
three musicians, called "The Concert," which has 
been reproduced in many ways but which gives 
one fresh delight when seen in the colors that the 
master used. It is usually attributed to Giorgione, 
but the ablest critics assign it to Titian. Other 
great pictures by Titian are "The Magadalen," 
"The Bella" and portraits of Ippolito de Medici 
and of a young Englishman, supposed to be Thomas 
Howard, third Duke of Norfolk. The latter is a 
splendid canvas, the dark, refined face standing out 
as though alive. Here also are masterpieces by 
Perugino, Velasquez, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Van 
Dyck, Rubens and Botticelli. The eye soon tires 
of this wealth of color and it requires several visits 
to get these pictures properly placed in the memory. 

Another picture gallery which is worth some 
study is the Accademia di Belli Arti. It has a col- 
lection of pictures of the fourteenth, fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries which give admirable material 
for the study of the development of Florentine art. 
Here are seen fine specimens of the work of Fra 
Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli and Ghirlandajo. 
The most celebrated picture in the collection is 
Botticelli's "Spring," so familiar from countless re- 
productions of " Mercury " and the "Three Graces". 

[82] 



Florence and Its Art Treasures 

Of statuary the finest thing is the original of Michel- 
angelo's "David." This was carved from a block 
of marble that had been spoiled. For over three 
hundred and fifty years this great statue stood in 
front of the Palazzo Vecchio; then in 1873 it was 
removed to this gallery and a copy was substituted. 
It should have been allowed to stay near the other 
masterpieces of sculpture out in the open. 

Another great piece of Michelangelo's work 
may be seen in the tombs that he carved for the 
Medicisin the New Sacristry of San Lorenzo Cathe- 
dral. Under the figure of Giuliano de Medici the 
sculptor carved two figures which are called Day 
and Night; under the thoughtful figure of Lorenzo 
he wrought two figures known as Twilight and 
Dawn. All these figures are very beautiful, but 
they depress you, for in them you seem to see the 
famous sculptor's idea that it was useless to struggle 
against fate. An ardent lover of liberty, he was 
forced to carve these memorials to the men who 
deprived his favorite city of its freedom. In the 
old Franciscan Church of Santa Croce may be 
found Vasari's monument to Michelangelo, with 
a bust by Lorenzi which shows how the sculptor's 
nose was refined by age and suffering. Here also 
are the tombs of Alfieri the poet, and of Macchia- 
velli whose name is a synonym for duplicity. 

Florence is so rich in memorials of the Italian 
Renaissance that one comes upon them at every 
turn. The city is rich also in beautiful suburbs, the 
finest of which is Fiesole, from which a splendid 
view may be gained of the city, the Arno and the 
surrounding country. Many days may be spent 
with pleasure and profit in Florence, which shares 
with Rome the power of appealing to any lover of 
history, art or beauty in nature. 

[83] 



Venice, 

City of Romance 

and Beauty 



The charm of Venice lies in its unlikeness to 
any other place. You may have read of its 
canals and its lagoons, its palaces and its 
prisons, its gondolas that glide mysteriously through 
dark stretches of glassy water, but the reality comes 
upon you with unexpected force. My arrival was 
at night and my introduction to the Grand Canal 
and the smaller canals was made on the way from 
the railroad station to the hotel. It was a half hour's 
ride in a gondola and it was a fitting prelude to six 
days of sight-seeing in this curious old city of the 
Adriatic. The gondola was black; the waters of the 
canal were inky black; the only sign of life was the 
splashing of the paddles of the gondoliers and their 
cries as they approached a sharp turn in the canal. 
High on each side towered houses, also black as 
night. An occasional light on an iron cresset cast its 
rays far over the oily water. 

Soon we passed from a side canal into the Grand 
Canal, whose borders were marked by a series of 
lights at the doorways of the palaces. Romance and 
mystery brooded over this expanse of water which 
had seen in the heyday of Venice some magnificent 
pageants, such as the annual wedding of the city to 
the Adriatic. As the gondola neared the brilliantly 
lighted platform in front of the hotel, the deep tones 
of a great bell sounded ten o'clock, and a number 

[84] 



Venice, City of Romance and Beauty 

of smaller bells repeated the strokes. Then silence 
fell again, broken only by the occasional hoarse 
warning of a gondolier. 

The modern hotel in Venice has a fierce struggle 
with its sixteenth century environment. All the 
hotels are located in ancient palaces, many of them 
fronting on the Grand Canal. The electric light and 
running water have been introduced, but this is as 
far as modernization has gone. No attempt has 
been made to clean up the fronts of these old pal- 
aces, many of which are blackened by the salt sea 
winds. The rooms are huge, the halls vast, the mod- 
ern landlord mourns over the waste of good rentable 
space devoted to spacious reception rooms and hall- 
ways. The result is that you seem to be dwelling 
in a baronial castle on some enchanted island, and 
this illusion is emphasized by the lapping of the 
waters of the Grand Canal under your window. 

In the morning when you look out the first 
thing that meets your gaze is the long reach of the 
Grand Canal; near by is the golden ball over the 
Custom-house and the beautiful lines of the Church 
of Santa Maria della Salute. Down the canal stretch 
two rows of palaces, their fronts gleaming in the 
sunlight. The canal is full of gondolas, which are 
tossed about like corks by the wash of a passing 
ferry-boat. In the harbor, beyond the Custom- 
house, are several ocean steamers. Everything looks 
bright and clear and the longing comes upon you 
to get out upon the canal and make the acquaint- 
ance of Venice near at hand. 

The Venetian gondolier used to dress in fancy 
costume, with a brilliant red sash; now he wears 
ready-made clothes and a sweater. But he hasn't 
forgotten the gay spirits of his ancestors. He sings 
at his work and he calls out for your edification the 

[85] 



The Critic in the Occident 

names of the palaces as you go by. Venetian archi- 
tecture always appealed to me in photographs and 
the reality was not disappointing. The massing of 
the Gothic windows in many of these palaces is 
singularly attractive; while the richly ornamented 
doorways furnish a constant source of pleasure to 
the eye. My hotel, built in the pointed style of the 
fifteenth century, was formerly the Palazzo Giusti- 
niani. Chateaubriand and Ruskin lived at this hotel 
many years ago, and just before her death George 
Eliot spent several weeks here. In one of the front 
rooms Verdi was inspired by a terrible storm, which 
swept across the lagoon and thundered against the 
house, to write the fourth act of "Riggoletto." 
Here also Wagner wrote parts of "Tristan and 
Isolde." 

Going down the Grand Canal, among the note- 
worthy houses are the Palazzo Contarini-Fasan, 
"the House of Desdamona," a small three-story 
structure with a highly ornamental front; the Palazzo 
Rezzonico, a magnificent building in which Robert 
Browning died; the two Palazzos Giustiniani,in one 
of which Howells wrote his Venetian Life, and in 
the other Wagner wrote the fourth act of "Tristan 
and Isolde;" the Palazzo Mocenigo, the home of 
Lord Byron in 1 8 1 5 ; the Palazzo Grimani, the fin- 
est Renaissance building on the canal, now occupied 
by the Court of Appeals; the Palazzo Manin, the 
home of the last Doge of Venice, now the Bank of 
Italy; the Ca d'Oro, or Golden House, the hand- 
somest palace on the canal, with a double set of 
Gothic windows, and the Signory's Palace, now con- 
verted into a hotel, once the abode of George Sand 
and Alfred de Musset during that tour which began 
so auspiciously and ended so tempestuously in bitter 
quarrels and two books of biting satire. 

[86] 



Venice, City of Romance and Beauty 

Many of these palaces are built of white marble, 
which is blackened in places by the sea winds. It is 
singular that this blackening does not follow any 
regular rule. Sometimes it is the heavy cornice over 
the door, sometimes the spaces under the window 
ledges, but frequently a black stripe extends clear 
across the front of the building. Many of the build- 
ings are plastered brick, and these do not seem to 
show the effects of the atmosphere like the marble 
palaces. The favorite color is a rich yellow. These 
palaces are all built on piles and the walls rise di- 
rectly from the water. All are provided with im- 
posing entrances and fine marble stairs, and in front 
of most of them wooden poles are erected for the 
protection of gondolas. A stately life the ancient 
Venetians led in these great palaces, with their wide 
halls and spacious rooms, many of them finely orna- 
mented with frescoes on the walls and the ceilings. 
The Grand Canal is spanned by three bridges, the 
most picturesque of which is the Bridge of the Ri- 
alto, with small shops on each side of the steps. 

The heart of Venice is the Square of St. Mark, 
laid out in the old days like the Forum of Rome. 
At one end is St. Mark's Cathedral and the Doge's 
Palace, while the other three sides are filled with 
the two palaces of the nine Procurators and the 
Atrio, erected in 1810. These three buildings are 
all of three stones, and their ground floors are a 
series of arcades, containing shops and restaurants. 
The square is paved with marble and in front of 
the church rises the great Campanile, three hundred 
and twenty-two feet in height, which fell to the 
ground in 1902, but which is now restored in finer 
style. Some critics have declared that the Campanile 
dwarfs the church and that St. Mark's Square would 
be more artistic without this tower. 

[87] 



The Critic in the Occident 

Entering the square of St. Mark by one of the 
narrow streets the effect is bewildering. The Cathe- 
dral looks as though it were made of iridescent shell, 
the sunlight bringing out new shades every hour. 
Its architecture is Byzantine, with domes in the 
center and at the end of each arm of the Greek 
cross that forms the body of the edifice. The front 
is richly decorated in colors and gold and gorgeous 
mosaics, and, as Ruskin well says, its effect depends 
"on its color, and that the most subtle, variable, in- 
expressible color in the world— the color of glass, of 
transparent alabaster, of polished marble and lus- 
trous gold." Over the main door are the four horses 
in gilded bronze which once surmounted the tri- 
umphal arch of Titus in Rome. From Rome they 
were taken to Constantinople and the Venetians 
captured them with that city. They impressed Na- 
poleon so much that he carried them to Paris to 
adorn his Arch of Triumph but after his downfall, 
the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria restored 
them to Venice. 

To the left of the church is the great clock 
tower, which forms the last building on the north 
side of the Piazza. It is of four stories. The first 
is an arch, supported by marble pillars; the second 
is the big blue and gold dial; the third is made up 
of a gilded statue of the Madonna, and the fourth, 
which is really a tower, presents a figure of a doge 
kneeling before a lion, both in half relief against a 
background of blue with golden stars. The clock 
tower is surmounted by two colossal bronze figures, 
the "Two Moors," which strike the hours with 
hammers on a bronze bell. 

It is impossible in a few words to give any idea 
of the richness of the interior of St. Mark's. Mosa- 
ics, sculpture, gilding and carved ivory are lavished 

[88] 



Venice, City of Romance and Beauty 
here with Oriental magnificence. The high altar is 
ablaze with jewels and behind it is a second altar 
with four spiral columns of alabaster, two of which 
are translucent. Tradition says that these columns 
came direct from the temple of Solomon. 

The decoration of St. Mark's is Byzantine in 
color and richness; the pavement is formed of many 
colored marble; the walls areincrusted with precious 
stones in mosaic of the most intricate patterns; gold 
is laid on with a lavish hand. Barbaric is the only 
word that applies to this decoration which is in such 
great contrast to the rich but more chaste decoration 
of St. Peter's in Rome. But it must be borne in 
mind that the builders of St. Mark's and the many 
beautiful homes on the Grand Canal were men who 
for years had had intimate relations with the Orient. 
These Venetian Grandees were merchants who 
knew the values of Oriental gems and precious 
stones as well as though they lived in Colombo or 
Bombay. But they were also Italians who were 
profoundly influenced by the Gothic spirit as well 
as by the finest models of Greek sculpture and 
architecture. The combination produced this unique 
church which seems to differ in appearance every 
time one sees it. I liked it best at early morning 
when the sunlight from the lagoon gave it the tint 
of a great seashell. But the interior may be seen 
best at high-noon on a sunny day when rifts of 
light through the openings in the dome brought to 
view brilliant mosaics glowing with the wealth of 
the Indies. The great curiosity in the church is 
the Pala d'Oro, a masterpiece of the goldsmith's 
work, once studded with priceless stones, now a 
mere make-believe with paste jewels. 

To the left of the church is the Palace of the 
Doges, the most striking building in Venice. Its 

[89] 



The Critic in the Occident 

effective feature is a double arcade in Gothic style, 
which extends around two sides of the building. 
The capitals of the columns are richly decorated 
and the whole effect of the facade is so gorgeous 
that it does not suffer by contrast with the Cathe- 
dral. The entrance to the Palace is by the golden 
stairs, which could be trod only by those whose 
names were inscribed as nobles in the Golden Book. 
On the upper floor are the great rooms in which 
the officials of the Republic held their meetings. 
Here are waiting-rooms, the Doge's reception room, 
the meeting place of the Senate, the room of the 
Council of Ten, the chamber of the Three In- 
quisitors and the hall of the Great Council. All 
these rooms have magnificent ceilings and their 
walls are adorned with masterpieces by Paolo Vero- 
nese, Titian, Tintoretto, Bassano and other artists. 

In the wall of one of these rooms in the Doge's 
Palace may be seen the Lion's Mouth, in which 
were placed written accusations against any member 
of the Republic. The old lion's head on the out- 
side has been nearly chiseled away, but its faint out- 
lines may be made out. Going down a flight of 
stairs, a passageway takes you out upon the famous 
Bridge of Sighs which connects the palace with the 
prisons on the other side of a narrow canal. Senti- 
ment need not be wasted on this bridge, however, 
as it was never used by any of the famous prisoners 
confined here. You may see the dark dungeons 
and the chamber where prisoners were tortured, 
but the old prisons under the leaden roof of the 
palace have been destroyed. 

The Doge's Palace is one of the most interest- 
ing buildings in the world, as it shows the magnifi- 
cence of this government of a Republic founded 
on commerce. The Republic was a republic only 

[9°] 



Venice, City of Romance and Beauty 

in name, for all the power was practically in the 
hands of the Council of Ten, an oligarchy of nobles. 

Opposite the side of the palace is the piazetta, 
which is bounded on the west by the Library, a 
splendid building by Sansovino, consisting of a 
double colonnade with arches and embedded col- 
umns. At the south end near the lagoon are two 
granite columns, one surmounted by the winged 
lion of St. Mark, the other by St. Theodore, patron 
saint of the Republic, standing on a crocodile. The 
Square of St. Mark in the heyday of the Republic, 
was the chief gathering place of the people. Here 
from the great door of the palace were read the de- 
crees of the Council. And on Palm Sunday pigeons 
were sent out and found nests in adjacent buildings. 

From this came the custom of protecting pigeons 
in this square. For many years down to the end of 
the Republic the state cared for these pigeons; now 
they are kept sleek and fat by the tourists and the 
children of Venice, who buy corn and peas of a 
privileged vender. One of the pretty sights of 
Venice is a flock of these tame pigeons feeding from 
the hand of a little child. 

The Venetians seem to have an abundance of 
leisure. At noon and again between five and six 
o'clock in the afternoon the open-air cafes that line 
the Square of St. Mark are crowded with people 
drinking coffee and liqueurs and eating cakes. In 
the afternoon the military band plays on several 
days and the crowd promenades up and down the 
square. With the sunlight gleaming on the gold 
and colors of St. Mark, with the pigeons wheeling 
in the air, with the stirring music of the band and 
with the laughter and gay talk of the merry crowds, 
this square presents a spectacle that can be matched 
in few cities of the world. 

[91] 



The Critic in the Occident 

Venice is rich in art collections, but it must suf- 
fice here to glance at only a few of the best pictures 
by the great masters. The most famous painting in 
the Academy is the "Assumption of the Virgin," by 
Titian, which reminds one of Raphael's "Transfig- 
uration" in the beauty of its composition and the 
splendor of its coloring. In the same room is Tin- 
toretto's "St. Mark Rescuing a Slave" and Paul 
Veronese's "Madonna Enthroned "With Saints"— 
two masterpieces. Other noteworthy pictures are 
"Jesus in the House of Levi," by Paul Veronese, 
and Tintoretto's "Descent From the Cross." 

A score of churches in Venice will richly repay 
the tourist who visits them. Among these the finest 
is the Frari, a Gothic church built in the early 
part of the fifteenth century. It contains a fine 
monument to Titian, and an altar piece by Titian, 
which some critics regard as superior to the "As- 
sumption." The Church of Santa Maria della 
Salute is noteworthy for its perfect dome and its pic- 
tures by Titian. Santi Giovanni e Paulo, in the 
Italian Gothic style, contains the tombs of the 
Doges; Santa Maria dei Gesuiti is lined with marble 
inlaid with verd antique and it possesses an altar 
piece by Tintoretto and a fine Titian. 

The best statue in Venice is the bronze eques- 
trian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, a famous Gen- 
eral of the Republic. It was modeled by Verrocchio, 
the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci, and it fully justi- 
fies Ruskin's high praise. The soldier sits his horse 
in splendid fashion and the whole figure gives the 
impression of a fighter and a leader of men. 

Venice in its history, its art and its architecture 
is unique, while its miles of canals, its ancient houses 
and its picturesque bridges furnish material that is 
the despair of the artist. 

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PLATE XXV 

The Great Cypresses in the Villa d'Este, Near Tivoli, Planted 
in the Same Year That Columbus Discovered America. The Villa 
Was Built by Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, Whose 
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PLATE XXXII 

The Historic Bridge of Sighs, Connecting the Palace of the 

Doges in Venice With the Prison Across the Rio Canal. Over this 

Bridge Prisoners Condemned by the Council of Ten Were 

Taken to the Terrible Dungeons of the Prison 



FRANCE, LAND OF 

ROMANCE, THRIFT AND 

ARTISTIC LIFE 



Monte Carlo and 

Its Gilded Gambling 

Palace 



To escape the severe cold which held fast in 
ice all the country north of the Alps, I 
crossed Northern Italy and journeyed to 
France by way of the Riviera. The ride from 
Venice to Genoa was tedious, although it was over 
historic ground, and for part of the way was in sight 
of the snow-crowned Alps. 

This railroad ride across Northern Italy takes 
one through Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, and Milan. 
The long ride is relieved by exquisite views of the 
snow-clad Alps and of the string of Italian lakes, 
that are counted among the loveliest in all Europe. 
The night ride from Milan to Genoa was tiresome, 
but the sight of Genoa in the morning was one long 
to be remembered. 

This ancient city which boasts that it was the 
birthplace of Columbus, is essentially a seaport, with 
a great mingling of races on its picturesque water- 
front. Its palaces of sixteenth century noblemen 
are among the finest in Italy and it also has many 
interesting relics of the discovery of America. The 
Palazzo Doria is the most magnificent of the build- 
ings reared to commemorate the glories of ancient 
families, and it stands as a monument to Andrea 
Doria, who established the supremacy of Genoa. 

From Genoa to Nice the railroad ride gives one 
a succession of views of the Italian and French 

[9S] 



The Critic in the Occident 

Riviera. The coast line is constantly cut by bold 
headlands, and the villages are perched on rocky 
crags. With their stuccoed walls and red-tiled roofs, 
the villas of wealthy foreigners give the whole coast 
the look of the background of a comic opera. There 
is a constant succession of tunnels, but as the train 
shoots out of one to enter another, the eye is caught 
by lovely glimpses of flashing blue sea and clear 
blue sky. The air is warm and still, for here we are 
under the shelter of the Maritime Alps where the 
cold winds from the north cannot reach. The train 
passes through Savona, Oneglia, San Remo, Venti- 
miglia, Mentone and Monte Carlo to Nice. 

Nice is the favorite pleasure ground for all 
Europe, but here, as in Egypt, the English and 
Americans outnumber all other foreigners. The 
place lies well on a small bay and the main avenue 
along the waterfront is called the Boulevard des 
Anglais. Here is a broad esplanade always crowded 
by strangers, while the roadway is choked with two 
streams of carriages and motor cars. The ladies 
make a brave show of furs and diamonds and the 
atmosphere is redolent of wealth and fashion. On 
the seaside is a great casino, while on the other is 
an unbroken line of palatial hotels and private villas. 

With its rows of shade trees and palms this is 
a magnificent avenue. It was originally begun by 
English residents and visitors in 1822 to furnish 
work to the unemployed. Nice was the birthplace 
of Garibaldi and of Massena, one of the ablest of 
Napoleon's marshals, and there are noble statues of 
both. It is a pleasure city pure and simple, and 
many excursions may be made to places of interest 
in the vicinity. Among these the most famous is 
Monte Carlo, which may be reached by a short ride 
on the steam cars or by the pleasanter electric railway. 

[96] 



Monte Carlo and Gambling Palace 

Monte Carlo is probably the best-known place 
in Europe, and few tourists fail to try their luck at 
the roulette tables. It is this extraordinary adver- 
tising which has made the Casino so enormously 
profitable. The principality of Monaco, when it fell 
to Prince Albert of the old family of Grimaldi 
about forty years ago, scarcely yielded revenue 
enough to maintain him; but the shrewd scheme of 
establishing a great gambling resort at this prettiest 
spot on the Riviera has made him a multi-million- 
aire. For years he has drawn a huge revenue from 
the gambling company which runs the Casino. A 
few years ago he had the stirrings of ambition to be 
known as something beside the owner of the great- 
est gambling house in the world. So he took up 
the study of oceanography, and in a few years he 
has become known as the largest contributor to the 
world's knowledge of the creatures that dwell in the 
deep sea. He has built a large museum near the 
Casino, to which he is constantly adding new speci- 
mens of marine life. This may be nothing more 
than a fad, but it certainly puts illicit gains to better 
use than pouring them into the greedy hands of the 
courtezans of Paris. 

The Prince receives about six hundred thousand 
dollars a year for the gambling concession and it is 
reported about as much more from customs' receipts 
and taxes on business. He also draws a large rev- 
enue from the half franc or ten cent tax on those 
who stay longer than fifteen days in the principality. 
The Prince is a thrifty soul and he has a son and 
heir who also has a keen eye to the main chance. 
This son, Prince Louis, had a daughter by a pro- 
fessional beauty of Paris, and this girl he utilized 
several years ago to increase his allowance from his 
father. The old man became very fond of the girl, 

[97] 



The Critic in the Occident 

so Prince Louis devised the abduction of the child 
from her grandfather's home in Paris and held her 
as a hostage. He demanded that she be given a 
legal name and title, and that he himself be granted 
an allowance of twenty thousand dollars a year, with 
payment of all his debts. The old Prince yielded 
and thus recovered his favorite. 

To secure admittance to the Casino, one applies 
to an official near the entrance. He takes your 
name, nationality, residence, occupation, and your 
request, either for a single admission, or for a pass 
for a fortnight. A longer stay than two weeks sub- 
jects one to a trifling payment as a residence tax. 
After checking hat and overcoat, you present your 
admission slip and the guard allows you to enter 
the main hall. From this hall opens a suite of three 
magnificently decorated rooms, with many mirrors 
and paintings, and with lofty ceilings, in the center 
of which are the tables for roulette and baccarat. 

The pictures are not particularly good, the most 
striking being a huge canvas filling one side of the 
first room, and supposed to portray "The Three 
Graces." Some caustic critic of Prince Albert's taste 
in art dubbed this "The Three Disgraces" and the 
name has stuck. No one now refers to it in any 
other way. It has the suggestiveness of some of 
Bouguereau's nudes, and the more one sees of it the 
less he likes it. It seems, however, to form a fitting 
background to the people usually seen around the 
roulette tables. 

More than half of these patrons are evidently 
professional gamblers, who take no heed of the 
crowd that comes and goes. Their whole attention 
is fixed upon the play on this green board, with its 
parallelogram on which a lucky play may yield a 
small fortune. At each table are three attendants 

[98] 



Monte Carlo and Gambling Palace 

who furnish silver change for gold. One is the 
croupier, who announces when the play is to be 
made and who pays the winnings. He also spins 
the marble ball which flies around the roulette wheel 
and finally settles into one of the numbered spaces. 
No stake is accepted under five francs or one dollar. 

Every seat at the roulette tables is occupied and 
there is a fringe of standing spectators and players 
from two to three deep. Each of the seated players 
has his fund of money in front of him. In most 
cases this is about evenly divided between gold and 
silver. About half the gamblers at the tables are 
women. The faces of these people are not pleasant. 
Of those at one table that I studied closely, only 
one had a fresh, unspoiled face. This was a richly 
dressed young woman, who looked to me as though 
she had set out to wager a certain amount of money 
for the mere sport of the game. She had about two 
hundred and fifty dollars in gold and silver in 
front of her and she was gradually adding to this 
heap by very carefully considered plays. She occa- 
sional' consulted a small note book and was evi- 
dently playing upon some system. 

The others all had hard faces, deeply lined, and 
showing the same marks of mental strain that may 
be seen in the faces of automobile racing drivers. 
These lines, fixed by greed or envy or disappoint- 
ment, could never be smoothed out in this world, 
for one felt in looking at these people that they 
would never give up this game. As well expedt the 
poor dweller in a big city to leave the spectacle of 
blazing ele<5tric lights and the intoxication of huge 
crowds for the quiet and peace of the country. 

Three at this table were old women, with faces 
so repulsive that one did not need to be told that 
life meant to them only the hope of winning a great 

[99] 



The Critic in the Occident 
stake, the desire to figure for a few moments as the 
envied one whose play had brought in thousands of 
francs. Their hands trembled, and you could see 
the gambler's passion in every movement. The 
men did not seem so much under the influence of 
the dominant passion as the women, but two who 
had evidently had hard luck, wore looks of great 
depression. One of these men had a small sheet of 
paper covered with calculations, but although he 
studied it carefully and played with great deliber- 
ation, he lost with monotonous regularity, while a 
man standing behind him, who played in a reckless 
way, won steadily. A venomous gleam of envy shot 
out of the losing man's eyes as he saw this careless 
gambler rake in coin that he was trying so desper- 
ately to win. 

In walking about the rooms I saw only one sign 
of the tragedy that is always so near the surface of 
this gambling mania. Two women were seated on 
a divan in the corner of one of the roulette rooms. 
The elder was trying to comfort her companion, 
who was weeping bitterly. Suddenly at some word 
from her friend, the weeping woman threw up her 
hands with a gesture that said as plainly as words 
that she had lost everything. 

For such as those who ruin themselves and 
have not enough money to return to their homes, 
the Casino authorities provide what is called a viat- 
icum, or passage money which the loser is expected 
to repay. The coin is not paid over, but a railroad 
ticket is purchased and the victim is escorted to the 
train and seen to leave Monte Carlo. The names 
and addresses of these people who apply for this 
fund are taken, and should they fail to repay the 
loan, as is usually the case, they can never gain ad- 
mittance to the Casino again. 

[ioo] 



Monte Carlo and Gambling Palace 

Many stories are told of the suicides at Monte 
Carlo, which are carefully concealed by the Casino 
authorities, but these tales are figments of the imagi- 
nation. It is often reported that a gambler who 
takes his life on the grounds is hurried out of the 
principality and buried as an unknown in a potter's 
field maintained by the Casino; but there is no 
proof of the truth of these tales. In fact, everything 
shows that they are apocryphal, for there are too 
many strangers always in Monte Carlo to make it 
possible to dispose of bodies secretly in this way. 
The man who loses everything at the roulette table 
is carefully watched and is not allowed to make a 
scene or to take his own life. 

The long ride from Nice to Paris may be made 
in fourteen hours by the train de luxe, which carries 
a good dining-car, but the American tourist should 
see to it that he is near this car when the manager 
goes through the train to deliver slips for seats at 
the tables. If you happen to be in the last car you 
will find that all the tickets for these first two tables 
have been taken, and that you will have to wait for 
the third table, a matter of two hours' delay, as 
everyone must finish and the tables be cleared be- 
fore a new lot of patrons is admitted. 

This ride, which is by way of Lyons, the third 
city in size and importance in France, gives one a 
good idea of rural France. There is little woodland, 
every acre seeming to be carefully cultivated. Es- 
pecially picturesque are the vineyards and orchards, 
with vines and fruit trees trained on trellises in 
many artistic designs. Lyons at the junction of the 
Rhone and the Saone, handles half the silk pro- 
duced by the world. It has noble quays and fine 
public buildings. Among famous men born in Lyons 
were Meissonier and Puvis de Chavannes. 

[id] 



Paris, the 
City of Magnificent 

Vistas 



Paris is a city of surprises and disappoint- 
ments. As a place of magnificent vistas it sur- 
passes one's conceptions; but its buildings and 
its statuary disappoint the tourist fresh from Italy. 
Its shops, which were once the wonder of Europe, 
are now easily surpassed in artistic quality by the 
shops of second-rate cities like Rome and Naples. 
Its gayety and brightness it has not lost, nor its 
fondness for the outdoor life of the cafes and boule- 
vards and great public parks. 

The first thing that strikes the tourist in Paris 
is the art with which the place has been converted 
into a city of magnificent vistas. On one side of 
the Seine a series of fine quays, with many statues 
and beautiful approaches to bridges, gives an aspedt 
of spaciousness. On the other side a succession of 
open squares linked together with magnificent tree- 
lined boulevards charms the eye. On the left 
bank are the Eiffel Tower, the Trocadero,the gilded 
dome of the Invalides, the fine towers of Notre 
Dame and the huge crown of the Pantheon. On the 
right bank are the Bois de Boulogne and the Champs- 
Elysees,with the two arches of triumph, the Tuil- 
eries and the Obelisk, the Column of July and the 
great mass of the Louvre. On the left bank the 
quays will average twenty feet in width; on the right 
bank the gardens of the Tuileries are fully fifteen 



[102] 



Paris, the City of Magnificent Vistas 
hundred feet wide, while the Champs-Elysees and 
the Bois de Boulogne are noble avenues, flanked by 
triple rows of trees on each side. 

The avenues are mainly paved with wooden 
blocks set upon a solid bed of concrete. They are 
kept beautifully clean by a small army of street 
sweepers, who flush the gutters on each side and use 
large brooms for collecting any refuse. In the Tuil- 
eries, the Place de Carrousel and the Place de la 
Concorde are fine fountains. Everywhere are statues 
and monuments, not so impressive as those in 
Rome or Florence, but far superior to any work in 
American cities, save a few statues that may be 
counted on the fingers of one hand. 

Nothing in Paris is so fine as the new monument 
to Victor Emmanuel in Rome, nor are there any 
fountains in the French capital that equal the Foun- 
tain of the Trevi or the Fountain of the Nymphs 
in the old city of the Caesars. 

What impresses one in Paris is the reverent 
care with which the name and the work of French 
men of genius are commemorated. It is common 
in America to find the names of statesmen and sol- 
diers given to the streets of cities, but here in Paris 
scores of streets bear the names of authors, play- 
rights, painters and sculptors. Here we have the 
Avenue Victor Hugo, the street of Balzac, even the 
street of Zola. Over one hundred monuments have 
been reared to the memory of patriots, authors, 
artists and musicians. Many of these statues bear on 
their bases significant words which keep alive the 
virtues and the wisdom of these great men whom 
Paris loves to honor. 

The history of the French Revolution may be 
learned from the epitaphs on the statues of the men 
who gave their lives that the people might enjoy 

[ io 3] 



The Critic in the Occident 

liberty. Thus on the base of the statue of Dan ton, 
one of the greatest of the revolutionists, are these 
noble words: "After bread, the chief need of the 
people is education." Everywhere may be seen the 
care taken to preserve old relics and to perpetuate 
history by placing tablets on the walls of historic 
houses. In a vacant space by the side of the ancient 
Church of St. Germain-des-Pres may be found sev- 
eral arcades from the old chapter-house of the abbey 
and other Gothic sculptures. Scores of bits from 
the facades of ancient historic houses may be found 
inserted in the fronts of modern structures. Memo- 
rial tablets commemorate the fad: that statesmen or 
writers lived in the houses which they adorn. 

The Seine is one of the most important features 
in every general view of Paris. Seen from any ele- 
vation, like the Eiffel Tower, the Seine winds 
through Paris like a great python. The river is 
spanned by many bridges and is bordered on one 
side by spacious quays and on the other by beauti- 
ful parks. Ferry steamers ply up and down and 
the river is also alive with tugs and other small 
craft. The quays are walled with massive masonry. 
Everything is as though it were built to endure 
forever. 

Viewed from any height, Paris looks like a toy 
model of a city. Each block of houses is complete 
and fills the whole space between the four streets; 
but in each large house is an air well varying in size 
with the size of the building. Looking down upon 
the city, these blocks of brick and stone buildings, 
with their red-tiled roofs in Mansard form, stand 
out in high relief against the well-paved, cleanly 
swept streets and avenues. For above all things 
Paris is a clean city. Its gutters are flushed every 
morning and its main thoroughfares are constantly 

[104] 



Paris, the City of Magnificent Vistas 

swept, so that no dirt accumulates as in London or 
New York. Asphaltum and wood form the princi- 
pal pavements, which on all the main streets are 
kept in superb order. Many of the boulevards 
have two or three lines of trees on each side, that 
form a grateful shade in the heat of summer. 

As one looks down from the Eiffel Tower one 
of the most conspicuous objects is the glided dome 
of the Invalides. Beneath it in a splendid tomb of 
red porphyry rest the remains of Napoleon; but 
the stamp of the greatest of Frenchmen has been 
placed upon all parts of Paris. You see the magic 
letter"N"on several of the bridges that span the 
Seine; on the two arches reared to commemorate 
the victories of the conqueror from his first brilliant 
campaign in Italy down to the Russian campaign 
which began so ably and ended in disaster; on the 
Vendome column, and on many other monuments 
and bits of statuary. 

On the triumphal arches Napoleon proclaimed 
his deeds with no false modesty. Above all other 
rulers of France, he knew how to appeal to the 
national love of glory, and the proof of this maybe 
seen in the faces of Frenchmen to-day as they read 
the inscriptions on these arches, which proclaim the 
supremacy of French arms. These sonorous proc- 
lamations by Napoleon help them to forget the 
feebleness of Napoleon the Little and the disasters 
of Metz and Sedan. 

Napoleon's name is still one that fires the 
French heart. His tomb attracts larger crowds than 
any other show place in Paris. It is in the Dome 
des Invalides, a church in the rear of the Hotel des 
Invalides and the Church of St. Louis. Above all 
other sights in Paris this is the most truly impress- 
ive. Frenchmen and foreigners alike feel the gran- 

[i°5] 



The Critic in the Occident 

deur of the tomb, which is enhanced by these elo- 
quent words from Napoleon's will: "I desire that 
my ashes may rest on the banks of the Seine in the 
midst of the French people whom I have loved so 
well." 

The tomb of Napoleon would be far more im- 
pressive had it been placed directly on the banks 
of the Seine, as Grant's tomb is placed on the shore 
of the Hudson. You pass from the Church of the 
Invalides through a narrow arcade, turn a corner 
and enter the door of a second church at the rear. 
But once inside you forget the meanness of the ap- 
proach. Directly under a splendid dome is an open 
circular crypt thirty-six feet in diameter. Leaning 
on the marble coping one looks down upon the 
dark red sarcophagus, thirteen feet long and nearly 
fifteen feet high. Around the tomb is a mosaic 
pavement of beautiful design and coloring, on which 
are the names of eight of Napoleon's greatest battles. 
Encircling the crypt are twelve colossal statues in 
marble, representing the victories of Napoleon, and 
twelve marble bas-reliefs. Six trophies include sixty 
tattered flags captured on many battle fields. 

From the dome a soft bluish light adds to the 
effectiveness of the scene. The design of the tomb 
is simple, massive and singularly solemn and im- 
pressive. Whatever may be one's opinion of the 
moral character of Napoleon or of his influence on 
France, it is impossible not to feel a genuine thrill 
as one looks down upon the remains of the man 
who for twenty years ruled Europe and made France 
the leading nation of the world. In the modern 
world he holds the same position that Caesar held in 
the ancient world. Everyone pays willing tribute to 
the enormous ability and force of this man whose 
achievements will remain the marvel of the ages. 

[i 06] 



Paris, the City of Magnificent Vistas 

In the museum of the Hotel des Invalides are 
many interesting souvenirs of Napoleon. Here 
may be seen the simple army pallet on which he 
slept during his campaigns; his field glasses and 
telescope; the old gray coat and cocked hat which 
endeared him to his soldiers; his swords and pistols 
and many beautiful presents given him by sover- 
eigns of Europe. Here also are souvenirs of his 
captivity at St. Helena; his favorite armchair and 
the bench on which he sat in the garden of Long- 
wood. And here is the death mask which brings 
out in a startling way the essentially Italian cast of 
Napoleon's features; the high-bridged yet delicately 
cut nose, the firm mouth and the strong chin. The 
mask reveals the enormous size of Napoleon's head 
measured from ear to ear. In this respect only two 
men of genius of modern times have equaled him— 
Gladstone and Carlyle. 

Many documents and letters that illustrate the 
rapid rise of Napoleon to power and fame are also 
shown in these rooms, which furnish material for 
several hours of interesting study to anyone familiar 
with the great Emperor's career. Here again the 
popular interest in Napoleon is shown in a striking 
way. Every scrap of paper that pertained to the 
great Emperor, every article that was associated 
with his life, is the center of an eager throng. The 
souvenirs of Napoleon III as well as those of the 
earlier Emperors are passed by carelessly, but the 
magic name of the first Napoleon still has power to 
attract the people of France. 



[107] 



Rich Art 

Treasures of the 

Louvre 



To the average tourist Paris is always associ- 
ated with the Louvre, one of the greatest 
collections of art in the world. To one who 
has not seen the big galleries in the Italian cities 
the Louvre is a liberal education in the art of the 
last four centuries, but to one who has made a care- 
ful study of the best statuary and paintings in 
Naples, Rome, Florence and Venice, the Louvre 
has very little to offer which is original. The array 
of bronze and marble copies of great original statues 
of antiquity is impressive, but these copies, though 
fine for educational purposes, are far inferior to the 
marble originals. 

About the only things which are unique are the 
Venus of Melos and the winged Victory of Samoth- 
race. The first is too well known by many repro- 
ductions to claim more than passing mention; and 
it is a fact that fine photographs of this statue are 
almost as satisfying as the original. The winged 
Victory, however, is one of the priceless treasures 
of Greek art that have come down to us. Though 
it lacks a head, it is full of life, and the free move- 
ment of the limbs and the sweep of the drapery are 
fine beyond the power of words to describe. The 
stone boat on which this statue stood was also re- 
covered, and this gives additional interest to the 
Victory. Coming upon it as you go up the main 



[i 08] 



■■ra 







The Tomb of Napoleon, Under the Dome of the 
Church of the Invalides — the Most Impressive Sight in all Paris. 
Captured Battle-Flags From Historic Fields and Colossal 
Figures Symbolizing Victories, Surround the Tomb 



Rich Art Treasures of the Louvre 
staircase to the picture galleries, this bit of the 
noblest Greek art impresses itself upon the imagina- 
tion more vividly than anything else in the miles 
of galleries in the Louvre. 

More even than the priceless pictures in the 
Louvre one is impressed with the wealth of decora- 
tion lavished upon all the rooms. Here are scores 
of rooms with the ceilings decorated by famous 
artists, and the cornices painted and gilded and 
often made beautiful by groups of statuary. So rich 
and varied is this adornment that the eye becomes 
sated with lovely forms and harmonious colors. 
The handsomest room in all the Louvre, and prob- 
ably the finest in the world, is the gallery of Apollo, 
a rectangular chamber, over two hundred feet long. 
The prevailing tints are bronze and gold. Every 
inch of ceiling, woodwork and walls is covered with 
decoration, while superb marble statues, bronzes and 
many artistic tables and cabinets add to the general 
richness of effect. In the center of the room, in a 
carefully guarded cabinet, are the crowns of Louis 
XV and Napoleon I, the latter an imitation of the 
crown of Charlemagne. In this same case are sev- 
eral crown jewels which were set apart when the 
others were sold in 1887. Among these are the 
Regent, one of the finest diamonds of the world, 
and the Mazarin. The display in this room of 
work in rock crystal, gold and enamel and silver 
repousse work is so rich that it would require a 
whole day to examine it adequately. The exhibits 
include many priceless specimens, whose beauty is 
enhanced by their artistic setting in rich cases. 

The Louvre has a splendid equipment for the 
study of Italian, Flemish, Spanish and French art. 
An entire room is devoted to Rubens, while there 
are brilliant specimens of the best work of Raphael, 

[109] 



The Critic in the Occident 

Titian, Rembrandt, Paul Veronese, Van Dyck and 
other masters. In the rooms devoted to French art 
it is very interesting to trace the development from 
the classical style of David to the impressionist 
work of Corot, the realism of Millet and the enor- 
mously clever effects of Meissonier. What cannot 
fail to strike any observer of French pictures is the 
supreme excellence of the draughtsmen and their 
easy mastery of all the technical resources of their 
craft. This is especially noteworthy when their pic- 
tures are compared with the best work of the mod- 
ern Italian artists who appear to revel in weird color 
effects and whose drawing is often atrociously bad. 

One of the best departments of the Louvre is 
the Chauchet collection given by a wealthy member 
of the French chamber of deputies, which includes 
the originals of Millet's "Angelus," Meissonier' s 
"The Return From Russia," Henner's "Reading 
Magdalen," and masterpieces by Corot, Daubigny, 
Troyon, Rosa Bonheur and others. There are few 
poor canvases and one spends more time profitably 
in these rooms than in many of the more preten- 
tious galleries. Here also are many of the finest 
bronzes of Barye, master of all the sculptors of wild 
animals. The only collection of Barye's bronzes 
that approaches it may be found in the Corcoran 
gallery in Washington. 

The Louvre has been arranged as a great edu- 
cational exhibit of the art of the world, and especi- 
ally on the free days, one may see how the people 
take advantage of this school of sculpture, painting 
and the applied arts. The effect of such a national 
exhibit is incalculable. It stimulates the artistic 
faculty among those who possess the genuine crea- 
tive impulse, while it trains the eye and the judg- 
ment of the great mass of the people. 

[no] 



Rich Art Treasures of the Louvre 

Next to the Louvre the most interesting collec- 
tion of statuary and paintings may be found in the 
Luxembourg Palace, built by Maria de Medicis. 
The palace is now used as the meeting place of the 
French Senate and in the former orangery is the 
museum, which contains a large number of superb 
specimens of the work of modern French sculptors. 
The paintings include masterpieces of foreign artists, 
among which may be mentioned Watts' "Love and 
Life" and Whistler's portrait of his mother. Among 
the great canvases by French painters may be 
named Bastien-Lepage's" Haying," Rosa Bonheur's 
"Husbandry in Nivernais," Jules Breton's "Bless- 
ing the Crops" and Bonnat's portrait of Cardinal 
Lavigerie. The garden of the Luxembourg is a 
beautiful renaissance garden with many fountains 
and groups of statuary. 



[in] 



Churches 

and Monuments of 

Paris 



Of the churches of Paris Notre Dame appeals 
most strongly to the tourist, largely per- 
haps because it is so firmly stamped upon 
the popular imagination through the historical ro- 
mance of Victor Hugo. It stands on an island in 
the Seine, and although it is surrounded by lofty 
buildings it impresses one by the majesty of its 
facade, which has three large recessed doors orna- 
mented with statuary. Above these portals is a 
gallery with twenty-eight niches, containing statues 
of Kings of Israel and Judah. Above this gallery 
is a fine statue of the Virgin, while the center of 
the second story is filled by a great rose window, 
with double-pointed windows on each side. On the 
third story is a gallery of pointed arches, and the 
whole is surmounted by a balustrade with figures 
of animals and monsters. Two unfinished towers, 
each fifty-two feet in height, complete the facade. 
Despite the fact that the towers appear too short, 
the whole facade is singularly impressive because 
of the portals and the rose window and the richness 
of the decoration. 

The interior of the church is noteworthy for its 
early Gothic construction, the beauty of the stained 
glass in the windows over the portals and the rich- 
ness of the pulpit, which was designed by the great 
architect, Viollet-le-Duc. From the towers of Notre 



[11 a] 



Churches and Monuments of Paris 
Dame one commands a superb view of Paris and 
its suburbs. In the south tower is the great bell, 
weighing twelve and a half tons. All about the 
gallery that runs around the tower are hideous gar- 
goyles which Victor Hugo has made memorable by 
his pen picture of the deadly struggle on this tower 
of the priest and Quasimodo, the dwarf. 

At the head of the Rue Royale, which leads 
from the Place de la Concorde, stands the Made- 
leine, a church which bears a striking resemblance 
to a Roman temple. Napoleon designed it as a 
temple of glory, but it was not until 1842 that it 
was completed. Surrounded by a colonnade of 
great Corinthian columns, the niches filled with 
statues of thirty-four modern saints, this church has 
a simplicity and a majesty that is very striking. 
The interior, which consists of one great nave with 
side chapels, is the most impressive in Paris. The 
building, which is three hundred and fifty-four feet 
long, one hundred and forty-one feet wide and one 
hundred feet in height, has a bronze roof which is 
conspicuous by its green shade in any birdseye view 
of the French capital. 

Another imposing edifice, built in imitation of 
the oldest building in constant use in Rome, is the 
Pantheon. Originally designed as a church, it has 
now become the tomb of many famous Frenchmen. 
Built in the form of a Greek cross, the dome rises 
to a height of three hundred and eighty-four feet. 
The portico consists of a great colonnade of twenty- 
two Corinthian columns, each eighty-two feet in 
height. The interior is singularly spacious and is 
adorned with many historical and religious paint- 
ings. In the vaults are the tombs of famous men, 
from Rousseau to Victor Hugo. Here also is the 
tomb of that first Grenadier of France, La Tour 

["3] 



The Critic in the Occident 

d' Auvergne, of whose valor such wonderful romances 
are related. Among the latest literary men to be 
buried here was Emile Zola. 

Another imposing building is the Opera-house, 
designed by Charles Gamier, and famous as the 
largest theater in the world. It covers three acres 
and occupies an entire block. Facing a public square, 
the exterior is embellished with statuary and other 
decoration, while gilding, bronze and marbles of 
many colors add to the richness of the effect. One 
of the most picturesque features is a series of cande- 
labra, female torch-bearers in bronze. The finest 
features of the interior are the grand staircase, with 
steps of white marble, handrail of Algerian onyx, 
bronze statuary as lamp supporters and magnificent 
ceiling frescoes, and the foyer, which is one hundred 
and seventy-seven feet long, forty-three feet wide 
and fifty-nine feet in height. The vaulting is orna- 
mented with mosaics, and this noble room is made 
more splendid by huge mirrors, gilded statues and 
two marble chimney-pieces. The auditorium is 
beautifully decorated, but the colors are now faded. 

It was my ill fortune to hear in this beautiful 
place the opera of "Romeo et Juliette" sung in the 
most perfunctory way. The soprano was a fine 
woman in face and form, but her voice was medi- 
ocre, while the tenor was so atrocious that no audi- 
ence in any large American city would have toler- 
ated him. The costumes, the scenery and the great 
ballet at the end of the fourth act were all superb, 
but it was melancholy to see this fine temple of 
music given over to commonplace singers. 

The audience at the Grand Opera was not large, 
but it interested me because of the peculiarities of 
the French playgoer. Of the three tiers of boxes, 
the top ones alone were well filled. In some of the 

[»4] 




The Winged Vidlory of Samothrace, One of the Finest 

Pieces of Greek Sculpture. It is the Chief Treasure of the Louvre 

in Paris and Stands in the Prow of the Stone Boat 

Which Was Found With the Statue 



Churches and Monuments of Paris 

lower boxes were overdressed women wearing for- 
tunes in diamonds and pearls; in others sat white- 
haired men who seemed to spend most of their 
time between the acts in leveling their opera glasses 
upon attractive young women in various parts of 
the house. After each act those in the parquet and 
orchestra circles left their seats and promenaded in 
the galleries and the foyer, many taking drinks, ices 
and cakes at the large buffet. The men all carried 
their silk hats into the house and between the acts, 
with hats on their heads, they faced about and de- 
liberately raked the boxes with their opera glasses. 
Two good-looking negroes in full dress suits occu- 
pied conspicuous seats in the orchestra circle. 

The waits between the a&s were very long and 
at midnight, when I left, the last a& had just begun. 
Ladies' hats and wraps and gentlemen's overcoats 
are left in the dressing-rooms with women who give 
checks for them. You pay for a programme no 
matter what part of the house you may have a ticket 
for. Orchestra chairs about halfway back from the 
stage are fourteen francs, but it costs a franc and a 
half extra^to reserve seats, making the total cost of 
a seat a trifle over three dollars. 

The most conspicuous of the public monuments 
of Paris are the two arches of triumph erected by 
Napoleon, one in the Place de Carrousel and the 
other in the Place d'Etoile at the end of the Champs- 
Elysees. The first was originally the principal 
entrance to the Tuileries. An imitation of the arch 
of Septimus Severus at Rome, this arch is too wide 
for its height, but it is ornamented with some fine 
marble reliefs representing famous victories of Na- 
poleon. It is surmounted by a quadriga of bronze 
depicting the triumph of the Restoration. This 
took the place of the famous quadriga brought from 



[»5l 



r 



The Critic in the Occident 

St. Mark's in Venice by Napoleon, but restored to 
the Venetian church by the Austrian Emperor. 
The other triumphal arch is the largest in the world. 
It is one hundred and sixty-four feet high and one 
hundred and forty-eight feet wide, and is adorned 
with statuary and bas-reliefs of famous victories by 
Napoleon. This arch is a landmark which is visible 
for many miles. 

Of the many monuments erected in Paris to 
distinguished Frenchmen, one of the finest is the 
Gambetta monument in the Square of the Louvre. 
Against a pyramid of granite is a bronze group 
representing Gambetta organizing the Committee 
of National Defense in 1870 and 1871. Decorative 
statues in bronze and passages from Gambetta's 
speeches complete the monument. Scattered about 
Paris, mainly in small squares and parks, are scores 
of bronze and granite monuments to famous men, 
many of them writers and artists. 



[116] 



Some of 

the Famous Museums 

of Paris 



Of the various museums in Paris the richest 
is the Cluny, which occupies the old build- 
ing erected by the Benedictine abbots. It is 
a fine specimen of the late Gothic style which has 
come down from the fifteenth century with very 
few changes. The museum includes over eleven 
thousand objects, representing works of art and in- 
dustry. The display of magnificent work in iron, 
silver, ivory and wood of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries is bewildering. To this is added superb 
collections of tapestries, faience, enamel, musical in- 
struments and many objects connected with royalty 
and the church. 

Even more interesting to the American than 
the Cluny is the Carnavalet Museum, which illus- 
trates the history of Paris and especially of the 
French Revolution. For eighteen years this house 
was the home of Mme. de Sevigne, whose letters 
to her daughter are among the classics of French 
literature. The many relics and prints of old Paris 
are extremely interesting, but what will linger long 
in the memory of every visitor are the letters and 
documents bearing on the French Revolution. 
Here are autograph letters of Robespierre, Marat, 
Mirabeau, Danton, Desmoulins, Voltaire and many 
others. Of all these, Voltaire in his old age wrote 
the clearest manuscript. Here also is the death 



[117] 



The Critic in the Occident 
warrant of Louis XVI, in which the King is referred 
to as Louis Capet, as well as the King's autograph 
order for the defenders of the Tuileries to stop firing. 

Among these relics are specimens of the lettres 
de cachet, signed by Louis XV and Louis XVI, by 
means of which any courtier or favorite could secure 
the imprisonment of an enemy without process of 
law. Among the relics in one case is a copy of the 
Constitution of 1 793, bound in human skin. There 
are portraits and miniatures of many famous actors 
in the revolution, including a fine picture of Char- 
lotte Corday, sketched while she was on trial for 
killing Marat in his bath tub. In this room is the 
arm-chair in which Voltaire died and the snuff box 
carried by Marat. These relics make very real to 
us the actors in this great struggle for popular liberty. 

Another museum of much interest to me was 
the house of Victor Hugo in the Place des Vosges. 
For fifteen years from 1833 to 1848 the author oc- 
cupied the second floor of this house, which looks 
out upon a little square, and in these rooms have 
been preserved some of the furniture which he used, 
with many of his books and pictures and a large 
number of sketches made by famous artists for illus- 
tration of his books. The stairway is hung with 
many of these drawings by Rochegrosse, Brion, 
Robert-Fleury and others as well as playbills of the 
first performances of "Ruy Bias," "Notre Dame de 
Paris" and other dramas. 

The drawing-room is hung with pictures, many 
of them suggested by Hugo's novels, and there are 
busts of the poet by Rodin and others. In the 
center of the room is a table made by Victor Hugo 
in Guernsey with the autographs, the pens and the 
inkstands of Lamartine, George Sand, Alexandre 
Dumas the elder, and Hugo himself. In the library 

[n8] 



Famous Museums of Paris 

are first editions of Hugo's works with the later 
editions, and a large number of drawings by the 
poet which show that he was a very poor drafts- 
man. On the wall are portraits of Lincoln, George 
Sand and the elder Dumas, given to Hugo. On the 
floor above are many interesting relics, the best be- 
ing the simple furniture of the room on the Avenue 
d'Eylau where Hugo died. Here is his bed, his 
dressing case, his writing table, pens, inkstand and 
manuscript case. 

Among the interesting features of Paris are the 
halles or markets which Zola depicts so well in one 
of his novels. The best time to see these markets 
is early in the morning, when the streets around the 
large building are filled with women selling vege- 
tables, fruit and flowers. These women line the 
streets on each side so that it is difficult for wagons 
to drive between them. In the great market build- 
ing everything is classified. In one avenue may be 
found a huge flower display, in the next fruit, in 
the next nuts, and so on. In one quarter poultry is 
being sold at auction and in another sheep and 
cattle. Considering the enormous business trans- 
acted, the market is very clean. 

It seems to be the custom for thousands of men 
and women to do their own marketing, for here 
were scores buying provisions for the day and pack- 
ing them in small baskets. It was a cold morning 
when my visit was made and many men and women, 
who had been there since midnight, were taking 
soup or coffee and bread. Itinerant venders with 
steaming pots passed through the lanes of people 
and dispensed refreshments. The fruit and vege- 
tables displayed in the street looked clean and fresh, 
and in the stalls much artistic taste was shown, es- 
pecially in the arrangement of flowers and fruit. 

["9] 



The Critic in the Occident 

One of the sights of Paris which many neglect 
is the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, where rest the re- 
mains of the famous dead. From the main entrance 
an avenue bordered by cypress trees leads up a 
slight hill to the Monument to the Dead, by P. A. 
Bartholome. This is carved from a single block of 
limestone and represents humanity pressing forward 
to the door of the tomb. The figures are full of 
pathos and, taken all in all, this seemed to me the 
most effective piece of sculpture in all Paris. The 
cemetery includes over one hundred and ten acres. 
It is laid out in avenues, but much of the beauty of 
the place is lost because of the fences that inclose 
so many graves and tombs. 

The finest monument in the cemetery is that 
erected to Thiers. It consists of a large granite 
chapel, with massive bronze doors. One of the most 
popular monuments is that erected to Abelard and 
Heloise. Under a Gothic canopy rest the statues 
of the couple whose love and misfortunes have 
been the theme of so many writers. In wandering 
through the cemetery one comes upon the graves 
of many famous authors, dramatists and composers, 
each marked by statue, bust or medallion. It is 
good to see the loving care with which the French 
people honor their men and women of genius. 



[120] 




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PLATE XLII 
Monument to Gambetta, in the Square of the Louvre, Paris. A 
Stone Column With a Bronze Group Representing Gambetta as Organ- 
izer of the National Defense in 1870-71. Decorative 
Statues Adoin the Sides. Above is 
Democracv Astride a Lion 




PLATE XLIII 

The Dome of the Invalides, Paris, Which Houses the 

Tomb of Napoleon. It Was Built as a Royal Church Where 

the King and His Court Could Worship 






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PLATE XLVII 

Main Staircase of the Grand Opera House, Paris, the 

Largest Theatre in the World, Covering Nearly Three Acres. 

This Entrance Was the Masterpiece of the Architect, 

Charles Gamier 




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LONDON, SEAT OF 
THE FOUNDERS OF WORLD- 
WIDE EMPIRE 



London, Huge, 

Smoke-Begrimed and 

Impressive 



The first impression that London makes is 
one of immensity. To the sensitive tourist 
it seems impossible in a short visit to see 
anything of this huge city, with its miles of streets 
and its thousands of famous buildings. This im- 
pression is heightened by the gloom due to a cloudy 
sky and a pall of soft coal smoke. But after the 
first depression the tourist sets out in systematic 
fashion to see what he can do in the short time at 
his disposal. Two weeks I spent in this task of 
seeing all that was most interesting in London and 
its environs. This labor was made more difficult 
by ten days of continuous rain. In any other place 
this rain would have discouraged me, but the spec- 
tacle of men and women going about London streets 
without umbrellas put me on my mettle, and after 
the first half day I never deferred any excursion be- 
cause of showers or a genuine downpour. 

To an American, London in March is not at- 
tractive, because of the gloomy skies and the per- 
vasive coal smoke; but it impresses the most care- 
less observer by its tremendous business activity, 
its massive buildings and its millions of people. 
London goes late to bed and rises very late. At 
nine in the morning more than half the shops have 
not opened; at ten you are lucky to find any of the 
responsible heads of departments at their desks. 

[ I2 3] 



The Critic in the Occident 

There are no signs anywhere outside of the Stock 
Exchange of the feverish rush that marks New 
York or Chicago; five o'clock tea is served in most 
of the offices; but these do not close before six-thirty 
or seven, and in the business day probably as much 
work is done as in the great American cities. 

In getting a general idea of London streets the 
best plan is to take a seat on the top of a motor 
omnibus and ride through the principal avenues of 
business and pleasure. The motor bus is one of the 
great time-savers of London. It goes everywhere 
and its speed is far superior even to that of a good 
carriage. For one penny or two cents the tourist 
may ride about a mile and a half; for threepence he 
may go to the suburbs, a distance of about seven 
miles. Next to the motor bus in convenience is the 
surface tram-car, which reaches all parts of the city, 
but which is slower than the bus and not so pleasant, 
as the upper seats are glassed in. 

Nothing more exhilarating can be imagined than 
riding for the first time on the top of a motor bus 
through historic streets of London, like the Strand 
and Fleet street, Holborn and Oxford street, Picca- 
dilly, Park Lane and Regent street. He must be 
sadly lacking in imagination who cannot get a thrill 
as he passes Trafalgar Square, the Parliament build- 
ings, Westminster Abbey, the Temple, the Tower 
and other famous places which have been familiar 
in his reading from childhood. The two under- 
ground railroad systems do an enormous business 
and many Londoners will tell you that they enjoy 
travel on these lines, especially on the deep tubes 
which Yerkes built. But the American who has 
any nerves cannot bring himself to fancy the tubes 
because of the tremendous roar made by the trains. 
These tubes are about sixty feet underground and 

[124] 



London, Huge and Impressive 

the descent is made by an elevator. The circulation 
of air is good, but the roar affedis the ear disastrously. 

The main thing that impresses the stranger in 
London is the massiveness of the buildings and 
bridges and all public monuments. Everything, 
even to the private residences, looks as though 
made to endure forever. Wood as building material 
is practically unknown. In Holborn are a few old 
buildings with plaster fronts and battens of wood, 
but these were the only structures that I saw in 
London not built of brick or stone. Even the roofs 
are of tile, so that there is practically nothing for a 
fire to feed upon. In all the public buildings and 
in many of the private houses the stairways are of 
stone or cement and the floors are of tile or inlaid 
hardwood. In the finest streets, where land is very 
valuable, few buildings are over six stories in height. 
This is because the English law recognizes the right 
of a property owner to protedt the light and air 
about his building. You cannot erect a skyscraper 
even on a valuable lot, because the owners of ad- 
joining houses would sue you for destroying their 
light and air. Thus there is a uniformity in height 
in all public buildings which adds much to the 
beauty of London streets. 

The city is also made picturesque by many 
small parks and squares and by some splendid great 
parks and avenues in the West End. The Thames 
is not so essential an element in the beauty of the 
city as is the Seine in Paris, but the series of em- 
bankments on one side, with the gardens and many 
noble buildings, make the river front singularly im- 
pressive. The river, with its many bridges and its 
numerous boats, suggests something of the great 
ocean carrying trade which has done its share in 
making London the greatest city of the world. 

["5] 



The Critic in the Occident 

The green of many small parks, squares and 
private gardens does much to rest the eye in Lon- 
don; but the city is very somber because of the de- 
posit of soft coal smoke which blackens and corrodes 
marble and stone and begrimes everything which it 
touches. While I was in London the Daily Tele- 
graph printed many letters suggesting remedies for 
the smoke nuisance. One scientist pointed out that 
it was the sulphuric acid that resulted from the 
combustion of soft coal that ruined fine buildings 
like Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral. 
The acid forms a deposit that frequently hangs like 
stalactites on the marble cornices of great public 
buildings and eats into the stone. Many of the 
marble buildings are cleaned periodically, but thio 
deposit may be seen best on old brick structures 
where it has accumulated for years. All statuary 
in the open air soon becomes blackened. Tht effect: 
of this coal smoke on human beings cannot fail to 
be disastrous. In my own case the pungent reek 
of this smoke in the morning when fires were lighted 
forced me to close the hotel window. As I was out 
practically all day my throat and lungs were irri- 
tated from breathing the smoke-laden air and my 
eyes became sore and swollen. Of course, one soon 
gets accustomed even to such impure air, but sev- 
eral Americans whom I met and who were residents 
of London declared that they had chronic bron- 
chitis, which only disappeared when they left the 
sooty atmosphere of the city behind them. It is as 
idle to attempt to keep clean linen in London as 
in Pittsburg in the old days, for a large flake of soot 
at any time may smudge collar or shirt front. 

What impresses the American in London most 
strongly is the ease with which the enormous street 
traffic is handled. The London "bobby " or police- 

[126] 



London, Huge and Impressive 
man has been praised for this, but it is due largely 
to the wise custom of turning to the left in driving. 
This rule splits traffic into two great streams, one 
going down the street on the left and the other 
coming up on the right. This simplifies greatly the 
problem of crossing busy thoroughfares, for the 
pedestrian need look in only one direction while 
crossing half of the street. It also makes the regu- 
lation of traffic very easy for the police officer, as 
in case of any sign of congestion he merely lifts his 
hand and stops all vehicles that are bearing down 
on the threatened point. It is a marvel how so 
many motor buses and taxis can get about the 
streets of London without collisions, especially as 
the drivers allow only an inch or two of space even 
when passing tram-cars. These drivers are wonder- 
fully skillful, and in all my wandering about Lon- 
don I never saw a serious motor collision. Most 
of the accidents are due to horses slipping upon the 
wet pavement. The street pavements are largely 
of wood, the old Nicholson pavement which San 
Francisco tried thirty years ago and rejected because 
the wooden blocks warped and bulged. Much of 
this was due to the failure to lay a good bed of 
concrete under the wood. This pavement appears 
to endure well the tremendous traffic of London's 
busiest streets, and it is the ideal roadway for 
loaded teams, as the horses can always secure a grip 
with their shoes, even in wet weather. 



[127] 



St. Paul's 

and Westminster 

Abbey 



Iondon I saw under the evil influences of the 
great coal strike and of suffragette activity. 
_^The result of the smashing of many fine 
show windows in the West End streets was that 
the stores dropped their curtains at night and made 
the streets look like a tomb. The most disastrous 
result to the tourist, was that because of fear of the 
threats of these women many of the public build- 
ings were closed. The British Museum shut its 
doors, and the only department that remained open 
was the reading-room. Hundreds of tourists were 
turned away every day from this, the chief show 
place in London. To secure admittance to any of 
the priceless collections of this museum an Embassy 
letter to the director was necessary. Hampton 
Court palace was shut, and so much red tape was 
necessary to get admission that few attempted it. 
The London newspapers, with that quiet disregard 
of public convenience which enrages the American, 
continued to print daily lists of museums and build- 
ings open to the public, but a notice at the bottom 
said that owing to the suffragette activity certain of 
these places were closed. No attempt was made to 
specify the places that were shut; this labor was 
calmly thrown upon the reader. In the same way, 
when the steamer Oceana was wrecked not a single 
newspaper in London printed the list of the seven 

[128] 




The Chapel of Henry VII, the Chief Glory of Westminster 

Abbey, London. Note the Elaborate Carving of the Oak Choir 

Stalls, the Fan-tracery of the Ceiling, Which Though 

Executed in Stone, Seems Light and Delicate as 

Lace Work, and the Beautiful Windows 



St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey 

passengers and twelve members of the crew who 
were drowned until three days after the wreck, when 
the steamship company furnished an official list. 
This list would have been the first thing that an 
American reporter would have secured. 

London has no avenues so fine as the Bois de 
Boulogne and the Champs-Elysees, but the great 
open spaces of St. James and Hyde Parks and 
Kensington Gardens, with such streets as Regent 
street, Piccadilly, Park Lane and Hyde Park Place 
make very good substitutes. Here in this new West 
End, with the magnificent monument to Queen Vic- 
toria, are spacious avenues and broad, green fields 
and freedom from the smoke and grime that hurt 
so seriously the older quarters of the city. And 
here, too, in walking through Whitehall one gets 
his first idea of the enormous number of houses and 
offices needed for the army and navy and the civil 
service. Old buildings are now being demolished 
near St. James Park to provide for the massing of 
all these Government offices in one district. 

Of all the sights in London, the American prob- 
ably turns first to St. Paul's Cathedral, the city's 
most famous building and its greatest landmark. 
The Cathedral stands in a busy commercial center, 
and tall buildings approach it so closely that one 
cannot get a proper view, as of St. Peter's at Rome. 
Yet the structure designed by Sir Christopher Wren 
is impressive from whatever direction one may see 
it. Walking up Ludgate Hill it fills the whole end 
of the street, although the beauty and size of the 
dome cannot be appreciated except from a distance. 
After seeing St. Peter's, with its wealth of decora- 
tion, the interior of St. Paul's seems comparatively 
bare and forbidding, but a study of the splendid 
Gothic arches and the great rose windows will con- 

[129] 



The Critic in the Occident 

sole one for the lack of pictures and statues and 
gilding. The Cathedral is second only to West- 
minster Abbey as the resting place of England's 
illustrious dead. Here are monuments to Welling- 
ton, Nelson, Rodney, Napier and many others. In 
the crypt, which is the full size of the Cathedral, is 
the sarcophagus of Wellington, of porphyry on a 
granite base, and in the place of honor, under the 
dome, the black marble sarcophagus of Nelson, 
which was originally made for Cardinal Wolsey. 
The churchyard at the back of St. Paul's is sur- 
rounded by buildings which are associated with 
many worthies of English literature, from Shakes- 
peare to Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith. 

Next to St. Paul's naturally comes Westminster 
Abbey, which is singularly impressive at first en- 
trance, but when studied proves disappointing be- 
cause of the way the various monuments are hud- 
dled together and of their inartistic character. Any 
nation that was sensitive to bad art would clear out 
many of these ugly monuments erected to mediocre 
men and fill their places with tributes to those who 
deserve national recognition. As it is, fully one- 
half of the monuments bear the names of people of 
small reputation. Even in the Poets' Corner there 
is an enormous monument to the Duke of Argyll, 
while Macaulay, Thackeray and Scott are repre- 
sented by simple busts. The Chapel of Henry VII 
is the finest in the Abbey. The choir stalls are 
beautifully carved and the chapel is famous for its 
fan-tracery ceiling, executed in stone, but so light 
and graceful that it looks like lacework. The Chapel 
of Henry V is made noteworthy by the old oak 
coronation chair of Edward I, in which every Eng- 
lish monarch since his time has been crowned. The 
Abbey is full of interest to any one fond of Gothic 



St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey 
architecture. The vistas made by nave and transepts 
are very beautiful and a study of the carving in the 
various chapels will reveal many curious features of 
sixteenth century decorative work. 

London is full of old churches that have great 
historical and architectural interest. Among these 
may be named the old Temple Church, which still 
stands among the cloisters of the Inner Temple. 
All around it the ancient buildings are devoted to 
law offices and quarters for educating and housing 
students of law. In this old church may be heard 
on Sunday some of the finest music in London. 
Near this church is the grave of Oliver Goldsmith, 
and not far away in Brick Court is an old building 
with a medallion of the author of The Vicar of 
Wakefield^ stating that the writer lived and died in 
a chamber on the second floor of the building. 
Thackeray also had chambers in this building at 
one time. The Temple cloisters and the gardens 
give one the idea of age more vividly than any other 
buildings in London. It is significant of the pious 
care that Englishmen take of historical places that 
the large gardens belonging to the Temple should 
have been preserved through all these years although 
the land is very valuable. 

Down in the heart of London, off Cheapside, 
stands the Church of St. Mary le Bow, which is 
noteworthy from the fact that the Cockney or gen- 
uine Londoner is supposed to be born within sound 
of Bow bells, which are rung from the steeple of 
St. Mary's. 



t'3'] 



History 

Seen in the Tower 

of London 



Of all the show places in London the one 
which appeals most strongly to the Ameri- 
can tourist is the Tower. Doubtless this is 
due to the many stories told of famous prisoners 
who spent weary days in the gloomy chambers of 
the Tower. From Anne Boleyn to Lord Fraser of 
Lovat, the list is long and illustrious of those who 
were beheaded, either in the Tower itself or on the 
hill, which is marked to-day by a stone slab. The 
Tower, which is built on the shore of the Thames, 
consists of two lines of walls with towers at regular 
intervals. Beyond the outer wall is a moat, and 
outside of this is now a handsome garden. In the 
center rises the square white Tower from which floats 
the flag. For centuries the Tower was used as a 
prison and a royal residence, but for many years it 
has served mostly as an arsenal. The warders, or 
Beef Eaters, as they are called, were made familiar 
to Americans by Gilbert and Sullivan's opera, "The 
Yeoman of the Guard." 

Most Londoners are unfamiliar with the Tower, 
which gives a series of object lessons in English 
history more striking than any pictures or stories. 
Here are some of the original towers built by the 
Norman conqueror, and in spite of hideous efforts 
to modernize many of the buildings, one may get 
from the white Tower the best idea of Norman ar- 



[ x 3 2 ] 



History Seen in Tower of London 
chitecture. It is a great pity that all the old towers 
were not preserved, but as it is, here are the relics 
of English history from the time of Norman Wil- 
liam down to the middle of the eighteenth century, 
when the last execution took place in the Tower 
grounds. Originally planned as a palace and a place 
of defense against uprisings of the people, the Tower 
finally became simply a gloomy prison and torture 
house, where many of the greatest of England's 
nobility were put to a shameful death. 

The Plantaganet and the Tudor kings and 
queens seem very near to us when we see in the 
Tower the actual reminders of their power and their 
cruelty. Henry VIII gave many heads to the 
block, including the wives of whom he tired very 
speedily. His daughter Elizabeth, who spent some 
of her girlhood in this gloomy tower, was almost 
equally industrious in lopping off the heads of 
those who defied her autocratic will. Here are 
relics of all these sovereigns, as well as of the vic- 
tims of their hatred and fear. The most impressive 
object, in the Tower is the huge Traitors' Gate, 
which in early days was the only means of entering 
the Tower from the river. The gate was always 
partly covered with water and the prisoners were 
brought up to the steps in front of the bloody 
Tower. The old steps which were trod by many of 
the most famous men and women in English his- 
tory may still be seen under their modern stone 
facings. Another impressive sight is the stone 
which marks the scaffold and block on Tower Hill, 
above the prison, where London's thousands gath- 
ered to see illustrious victims hanged or beheaded. 

It is most unfortunate that the Tower should 
not have been placed in the hands of real antiqua- 
rians and thus preserved for us as one of the best 

[ x 33] 



The Critic in the Occident 

relics of Norman England. The spirit of restora- 
tion in ignorant hands has spoilt much of the 
beauty and value of these priceless remains of Eng- 
lish history. Shakespeare in several of his historical 
plays and Scott in The Fortunes of Nigel and in 
P ever il of the Peak have given brief glimpses of the 
Tower. The touch of the great Scotch romancer 
adds much to our interest and serves to restore the 
real atmosphere of this grim place of torture and 
death; but the illusion is difficult to retain because 
of the stupid attempts at modernization which have 
converted many of the most interesting smaller 
towers into quarters for the guards, and thus closed 
them to the public. An ugly modern building has 
also been erected to provide quarters for guards and 
other officials. It is the same dense stupidity which 
has put hideous iron roofs on some of the old Fran- 
ciscan Mission churches in California and white- 
washed their age-mellowed walls. 

On entering the Tower the visitor walks through 
courts paved with slabs of stone, past the Traitors' 
Gate by which state prisoners were taken from the 
Thames to Wakefield Tower, where are now on ex- 
hibition the crown jewels of England. This display 
is remarkable, as it includes the King's crown, which 
contains no less than twenty-eight hundred and 
eighteen diamonds, three hundred pearls and other 
precious stones. Among the diamonds is the Culli- 
nan. There are other crowns, solid gold scepters, 
beautifully decorated with gems, bracelets, spurs, 
spoons and other objects, all of great value. The 
total value of the regalia is estimated at fifteen mil- 
lion dollars. From the regalia one passes to the 
main, or White Tower, which is ninety-two feet 
high, with walls from twelve to fifteen feet in thick- 
ness. In going up the winding staircase built in the 

[ J 34] 



History Seen in Tower of London 

thick wall the guide shows the place where the two 
skeletons, supposed to be those of the unfortunate 
princes murdered by Richard III, were found. 

On the second floor is the famous chapel of St. 
John, with its barrel vaulted ceiling, which experts 
have pronounced one of the best specimens of Nor- 
man architecture that remains in England. The 
other rooms on this floor contain a remarkable col- 
lection of armor, the most interesting feature of 
which is the series of fully armed knights on horse- 
back ready for the tournament. The armor ranges 
from the early Norman, with metal sewn on leather, 
to the finest armor of the sixteenth century. Per- 
haps the most interesting suit of armor is that which 
belonged to Henry VIII. It is much larger than 
an ordinary suit and was presented to that monarch 
by the Emperor Maximilian. It brings history 
very close to you when you look upon the well 
worn suit of armor which belonged to the Earl of 
Leicester, the favorite of Queen Elizabeth. 

In an adjoining room are many instruments of 
torture, including the thumbscrews and the rack, 
and a wooden block used at the beheading of Lord 
Lovat, the last prisoner who was executed in this 
way in England. The other Tower shown to visitors 
is the Beauchamp Tower, the middle chamber of 
which housed many famous state prisoners, who left 
inscriptions in prose and verse on its walls. Among 
these are some ingenious lines by John Dudley, 
Earl of Warwick, and an inscription by Philip 
Howard, Earl of Arundel. Here Lady Jane Grey 
was confined, and on the wall may be traced I-a-n-e, 
supposed to represent her name. Most of the 
buildings of the Tower give the impression of age 
more vividly than any other structures in London. 

[135] 



A Famous 

Debate in the 

Commons 



Whether seen from the river or from the 
shore, the Parliament buildings are the 
most imposing in all London. Of late 
Gothic architecture, with two great towers, these 
buildings with their Tudor wealth of decoration, 
never weary the eye. The river frontage is nine 
hundred and forty feet, and this enormous length 
gives a certain flatness to the facade, but seen from 
the opposite shore this impression does not hold. 
The north tower, nearest to Westminster bridge, 
contains a clock with four dials, each twenty-three 
feet in diameter. The great bell, known as "Big 
Ben," weighs thirteen tons, and it can be heard over 
all London. 

It is fitting that the only great Englishman to 
be given a place in Parliament square is Oliver 
Cromwell, who showed his contempt for the trap- 
pings of royalty, when he ordered the removal of 
the mace in the well-known words: "Remove that 
fools' bauble!" Cromwell, whose body was dug up 
from where it lay in Henry VFs chapel and thrown 
into a pit at Tyburn while his head was set up on 
Westminster Hall, now stands in heroic size with a 
lion at his feet in the grass plot at the entrance to 
the Parliament buildings. It gives an American a 
genuine thrill to find the great Commoner honored 
before kings, while the weak monarch who treated 



['36] 



A Famous Debate in the Commons 

the Protector's body with contumely is well nigh 
forgotten. Cromwell's is the only statue that is seen 
at the entrance to the houses of Parliament. You 
pass it as you walk toward the magnificent West- 
minster Hall, now used as a vestibule to the houses 
of Parliament, but for centuries the palace of the 
Anglo-Saxon and Norman Kings. The oaken roof 
with heavy beams and the enormous size of the 
room make this the most impressive hall in Lon- 
don as it is the richest in historical interest. 

One of the finest rooms in the Parliament build- 
ings is the Victoria gallery, one hundred and ten feet 
long, through which the King passes on his way to 
prologue Parliament. It is very lofty, with richly 
decorated ceiling and lined with bronze statues of 
English monarchs. 

Having procured an order of admission to the 
House of Commons from the American Embassy, 
you enter the hall that leads to the lobby. Visitors 
are admitted in parties of ten every few minutes. 
After passing up a winding staircase you reach a 
gateway, where you surrender your card and in- 
scribe your name in a great register, with your Lon- 
don address, nationality and sponsor. Then you 
pass up another stairway to the gallery, where three 
rows of seats at the back of the house are reserved 
for visitors. Unless you are on the front row you 
can see only about one-half of the house, which is 
rectangular, with projecting galleries on three sides. 
On the fourth side are the seats for reporters, and 
behind these a gallery with a screen, which is the 
only place provided for women. Because of the 
antics of suffragettes, who chained themselves to 
this grating and then disturbed the proceedings of 
the house, only female relatives of members are 
now admitted. In the middle of the chamber is a 

[137] 



The Critic in the Occident 

large table, on one side of which are the ministerial 
benches and on the other the seats of the opposi- 
tion. There are no desks and the members seem 
to be pretty badly crowded on long benches. On 
the afternoon when I visited the House about an 
hour was devoted to the answering of questions by 
members of the Government. These questions had 
been asked at the previous session and they were 
printed for the convenience of members. 

Then the coal strike bill was brought forward 
and many members flocked in from the cloakrooms. 
On the Government benches were all the leaders 
except Winston Churchill and the Premier. Mr. 
Balfour stalked in and sat down, stretching out his 
long legs and resting on the small of his back, ex- 
actly as the caricaturists represent him. His face is 
florid and he looks to be in the pink of condition, 
presenting a marked contrast to many of his associ- 
ates, who are extremely pallid. It is announced by 
a Government assistant secretary that the confer- 
ence between the coal miners and the Government 
is still on, but, in case the Premier is needed to 
make any statement, he may be called. While sev- 
eral members are declaring that they prefer to have 
the Premier present, Mr. Asquith walks in and 
takes his place by the side of sharp-featured Sir 
Rufus Isaacs, the Attorney-General. 

A hush falls on the assembly as the Premier, 
after a whispered conference with his lieutenants, 
rises and addresses the house. His face is pale and 
drawn, and, with his gray hair which is rapidly sil- 
vering, he presents an appearance of extreme lassi- 
tude. In a clear voice, with no hesitancy in his 
choice of words, he tells the House of the failure 
of his attempts to secure any compromise between 
the coal miners and the owners. He dwells on the 

[138] 



A Famous Debate in the Commons 

unceasing labors of himself and his colleagues and 
his voice breaks with emotion when he speaks of 
his profound sorrow over the failure of negotiations 
which he hoped would end the disastrous strike. 
The House applauds with the sharp staccato "Hear! 
Hear!" which has almost the effect of a cheer. 

Then follows an interesting debate of an hour 
in which opposition and labor leaders define their 
views. One of the clearest speakers is Mr. Bonar- 
Law, the opposition leader, who, while promising 
that no attempt will be made to check the passage 
of the measure, makes sharp comment on what he 
regards as defects of the bill. The Government 
secretaries rally to its support and then labor leaders 
like Keir-Hardie and Ramsey McDonald intervene 
and defend the claims of the miners. Many sharp 
thrusts are made, but, aside from the labor leaders, 
who talk like Americans, the majority of the 
speakers are not effective. As the discussion settles 
down upon minor points of the bill, I go downstairs 
for a glimpse of the House of Lords. 

In the House of Peers, which is a lesser replica 
of the Commons, without the gallery, a prosy dis- 
cussion was on concerning water rates in London. 
Lord Selborne was speaking in a way that showed 
he could go on indefinitely. There was a thin repre- 
sentation of peers and a few Bishops with big lawn 
sleeves. On the front bench was the Duke of Marl- 
borough, with one arm in a sling. His thin, pallid 
face, with its heavy-lidded eyes and weak mouth, 
never changed its bored expression. A few minutes 
of Selborne's monotonous talk was sufficient for 
me, and I left the place. The lobby was full of 
members, who evidently regarded the proceedings 
as unprofitable. 

[J39] 



The British 

Museum and Picture 

Galleries 



The British Museum is one of the sights 
which no tourist in London can afford to ig- 
nore; but, unfortunately, when my visit was 
made, the authorities had closed the place to the 
general public because of fear of the suffragettes. 
Through the kindness of the first secretary of the 
United States Embassy, I secured a letter to the 
director and this gave me the entree to the museum. 
What interested me beyond anything else in these 
great collections was the Elgin marbles, which are 
arranged in one large room. These are the statues 
and bas-reliefs from the pediment and the frieze of 
the Parthenon which were bought by Lord Elgin, 
English Minister to Athens, and by him sold to 
the British Government. They are represented in 
the museum at Athens by plaster casts, but here 
they are seen in all their original beauty. A few of 
the bas-reliefs are nearly perfect and the whole col- 
lection represents Greek sculpture at its best. 
Whether Phidias or his pupils did this work it has 
never been equaled and a study of these figures of 
gods and goddesses, men and horses, cannot fail to 
give one a better idea of the perfection of Greek art. 
The Greek and Roman rooms contain a number 
of original statues and heads which are noteworthy. 
The finest statue in the museum is the Demeter 
ofCnides, a seated figure with flowing robes, and 

[140] 



British Museum, Picture Galleries 
with an expression of calmness and majesty that 
keeps her aloof from the world. It is evidently the 
work of Praxiteles or of one of his pupils. Next to 
this in its power of making us realize the attitude 
of the ancients toward life, is the head of Julius 
Caesar, a splendid bit of revelation of character in 
marble. The Egyptian rooms house a collection 
second only to the great museum at Cairo. 

The other rooms give an unequaled survey of 
the whole world, arranged in such form that these 
exhibits cling to the memory. As material for 
study the British Museum is the ideal place in 
Europe. To me there was a special charm in the 
long lines of cases that contain illuminated books 
and autographs and letters of authors and other 
famous people. Here are bits of manuscript by 
many of the famous authors of the world, private 
letters, and specimens of early book-making. In 
these long galleries one who loves literature may 
lose all count of time for many happy hours. 

The main reading-room affords an opportunity 
for study which is furnished in no other city in the 
world. Here the student may have access to the 
finest working reference library in the world under 
conditions which make research a pleasure. The 
circular hall has a dome of glass and iron that is 
one hundred and forty feet in diameter, two feet 
larger than the dome of St. Peter's, and one hun- 
dred and six feet high. Here four hundred and 
fifty-eight readers may work, each having a folding 
desk, a book-shelf, pens, ink and paper. The library 
from which the student may draw contains over two 
million volumes and it is increasing at the rate of 
fifty thousand volumes a year. 

London is rich in collections of paintings and 
other works of art, and if one has not seen the gal- 

[HO 



The Critic in the Occident 

leries of Italy he can get a very good idea of these 
from the art galleries of London. The National 
Gallery, housed in a great building opposite Trafal- 
gar Square, is the most important. Here the paint- 
ings of various nations are arranged according to 
schools, which makes it valuable to the student of 
art. The most remarkable picture in the gallery is 
Raphael's "Madonna degli Ansidei," which was pur- 
chased by the British Government from the Duke 
of Marlborough for three hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars. To my mind it stands next in color- 
ing and composition to the "Transfiguration" in the 
Vatican. Of the other pictures by Italian masters 
the finest is "The Family of Darius at the feet of 
Alexander the Great," by Paul Veronese. The 
coloring is richer than that of any of this master's 
works in Florence or Venice. Flemish, German 
and British art is also represented by a long roll of 
masterpieces. 

Other collections which contain many fine pic- 
tures are the Tate Gallery and the Wallace collec- 
tion. In the Tate there are noteworthy collections 
of the work of Turner and George Frederick Watts. 
Here the student may have an excellent opportun- 
ity to study the paintings of the artist whom Rus- 
kin put at the head of modern painters. It is safe 
to say that few will agree with Ruskin in this esti- 
mate, for Turner's work has not stood the test of 
time. Much of the brilliant coloring has faded and 
many of the devices which he adopted to produce 
striking effects are seen to be inartistic. 

The finest picture here is "The Fighting Temer- 
aire Towed to Her Last Berth." The best picture 
in the Watt's collection is "Love and Life," which is 
so familiar through reproductions in photographs 
and engravings. 




The Main Facade of Westminster Abbey, London, With the 

Two Ugly Towers Built by Sir Christopher Wren. In the Square 

in Front is a Monument to Those Who Fell in the Indian 

Mutiny and the Crimean War 



British Museum, Picture Galleries 

The South Kensington Museum contains an 
enormous collection of works illustrating decorative 
and applied art. To walk through the various rooms 
takes more than four hours and even a superficial 
examination of the exhibits will consume more than 
an entire day. 

The Wallace collection is in Hertford House, 
the home of the fourth Marquis Hertford, the dis- 
reputable old lord who was the original of Thack- 
eray's Marquis of Steyne in Vanity Fair. The 
house afterward passed into the hands of Sir Rich- 
ard Wallace, who gathered the art works which his 
widow bequeathed to the British nation. The gallery 
is noteworthy for its collection of French, Dutch 
and Flemish paintings and for its examples of 
French sculpture and furniture, Sevres porcelain, 
enamels and ivories. London has many other col- 
lections of pictures and regular exhibitions are held 
in the spring at the opening of the season. 

A month could be spent with profit in a careful 
study of London and its suburbs and at the end of 
that time much would remain unvisited. The city 
is so vast and so much of English history is recorded 
in its streets and buildings, its monuments and its 
squares, that a residence of months would not ex- 
haust its objects of interest. 



[143] 



Literary 

Shrines and Haunts in 

London 



f ■ \o anyone of strong literary tastes London 
is rich in the homes and haunts of famous 



1 



English writers. Much that is mentioned 
in the guide-books is worthless, as it represents lit- 
erary fame commercialized, or famous memorials of 
literary genius that are not genuine. Thus it is im- 
possible to get any thrill from the Johnson corner 
in the Cheshire Cheese on the Strand, because there 
is no proof that the bench and the table shown for 
a shilling are really those used by the Doctor when 
he laid down the law to Goldsmith, Garrick and 
others. Nor does the Cock restaurant appeal to 
one because Tennyson wrote a rather poor poem 
to the "plump head waiter" there. 

But what is of the deepest interest are the houses 
and the streets that are associated with the English 
writers whom we love. Thus I spent several happy 
hours in the Temple grounds in identifying the 
chamber in Brick Court where Goldsmith worked 
during his last years, and the staircase, which when he 
lay dead in the room above, was filled with weeping 
women whom he had helped. Across the paved 
court is Goldsmith's grave by the side of the 
Temple Church, where you may hear some of the 
best organ music and choir singing in London. In 
this same building, No. 1 Brick Court, Thackeray 
lived for a time before fame came to him, and in 

[H4] 



Literary Shrines in London 
the neighboring Pump Court,Fieldinghad chambers. 
The only genuine relic of Shakespeare in Lon- 
don is old St. Olave's churchyard in Silver street. 
In the church, which was swept away by the great 
fire, Shakespeare witnessed the marriage of the 
young daughter of Christopher Mountjoy, a wig- 
maker, with whom the dramatist lived over the little 
shop at the corner of Silver and Monkwell streets, 
directly across from the churchyard. An old tav- 
ern, "The Cooper's Arms," now stands on this 
corner. The court records show that Shakespeare 
was a witness in a lawsuit brought against Mountjoy 
by his son-in-law to recover the dowry which he had 
promised to give to his daughter. This was in 
1612, and this record goes far to cast doubt on the 
accepted fact that Shakespeare spent the last years 
of his life at Stratford. It is certain that he wrote 
in this house over Mountjoy's shop, Othello^ Mac- 
beth and King Lear, which makes this a literary 
shrine of the first importance. 

Not far away down Cheapside is the site of the 
famous Mermaid Tavern where Shakespeare spentso 
many hours with Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, 
Dekker, Raleigh and other choice spirits. This tav- 
ern lay directly on Shakespeare's way from his 
lodgings to Thames street, where he took boat to 
the Globe Theatre on Bankside. Not a stone re- 
mains of the Globe Theatre, but near by is St. 
Saviour's Cathedral, in the churchyard of which 
were buried Shakespeare's youngest brother, Ed- 
mund, a player, as well as Fletcher and Massinger. 
Cheapside, now given over to trade, was in Shakes- 
peare's day the favorite haunt of writers and players, 
and even in the last century Keats lived in rooms 
in Bird-in-Hand Court, where he wrote one of his 
finest sonnets on Chapman's Homer. 

[H5] 



The Critic in the Occident 

Anyone who loves De Quincey will always as- 
sociate him with "stony-hearted" Oxford street, 
which witnessed the tragedy of poor Anne and his 
fruitless search for the girl of the underworld who 
saved his life by her prompt aid. The Confessions 
of an English Opium Eater are full of vivid pictures 
of London and with little trouble one may identify 
the shabby house in Green street, Soho, where the 
runaway boy shared cold and hunger with the poor 
little girl in the empty house of the disreputable 
lawyer. Hazlitt and Shelley also lived in Soho and 
their places of residence may be identified. 

Chelsea is probably the district in London that 
will appeal most strongly to the American literary 
pilgrim, for a score of famous authors made this 
pleasant suburb their home. Chief among these 
was Carlyle whose home for nearly fifty years was 
in the simple three-story house at No. 5 Cheyne 
Row. This house has now been set aside as a 
national museum, and it is of exceptional interest 
because everything has been left exactly as it was 
in the days when the author of The French Revolu- 
tion demonstrated here the value of plain living and 
high thinking. Few Londoners make the pilgrim- 
age to Carlyle's house; most of the visitors are Amer- 
icans. It is a long ride by auto bus, but the traveler 
is rewarded by the spectacle of this pretty village 
by the side of the Thames, and the quaint old house 
in which was written some of the most inspiring of 
modern English prose. 

Carlyle himself described the house when he 
was moving in in 1834 as "eminent, antique, wains- 
coted to the very ceiling; broadish stair, with a 
massive balustrade in the old style, corniced and as 
thick as one's thigh; floors as thick as a rock, wood 
of them here and there worm-eaten, yet capable of 

[146] 



Literary Shrines in London 
cleanliness and still with thrice the strength of a 
modern floor." This prophecy proved true for the 
old floors and the staircase still remain as testimony 
to the honesty of the builder. The garden at the 
back, which in Carlyle's day looked out on pleasant 
fields, is now shut in by neighboring walls, but it is 
sunny and quiet and it brings old Carlyle nearer to 
you than anything in the house. 

A woman care-taker shows real interest in the 
relics and allowed me to look at the books in the 
locked cases and to spend much time in these rooms 
whose record of tremendous work may be found in 
Froude's Forty Tears in London. The dining-room 
in the basement contains many souvenirs of Carlyle, 
the most interesting of which are letters and bits of 
manuscript. Back of this room is the large kitchen 
where he and Tennyson used to sit and smoke in 
the evening. In the drawing-room on the street 
floor are many literary curiosities including the 
Prussian Order of Merit and Carlyle's correspond- 
ence with Goethe, Bismarck and other famous men; 
the offer of a baronetcy by Disraeli and Carlyle's 
dignified refusal; notes for many books, including a 
carefully written copy of the translation of Goethe's 
Mason s Song. Connecting with this room is the 
bedroom of Mrs. Carlyle, where she spent so many 
unhappy hours worrying over such imaginary woes 
as her husband's infatuation for the brilliant Lady 
Ashburton. On the floor above are Carlyle's bed- 
room and the spare room where Emerson slept 
when he made his pilgrimage to the home of the 
man whose work he had done so much to make 
known to Americans. On the top floor is the sound- 
proof room which Carlyle had constructed so that 
he could be free from all noise of the outside world. 
Here he wrote Frederick The Great, but the chamber 

[147] 



The Critic in the Occident 

proved to be so hot in summer and so cold in 
winter that Carlyle was forced to abandon it. One 
of the most interesting relics is the cast of Carlyle's 
hands, slender, delicate, but suggesting great mus- 
cular strength, and the cast of the head with the 
tremendous reach from ear to ear. 

At the end of Cheyne Row is a little square, in 
which is a seated statue of Carlyle looking out on 
the river, and "the still country where at last we and 
our loved ones shall be together again." Nearby 
in Cheyne Walk are the houses where George Eliot 
died, and where Leigh Hunt, Rossetti, Swinburne, 
Meredith, Whistler and Turner lived. Whistler's 
house at No. 96 Cheyne Walk is noteworthy, as 
here he painted the fine portrait of Carlyle and the 
picture of his mother, his greatest works. 

The houses in London which have sheltered 
literary genius are many, but perhaps Americans are 
most interested in those associated with Dickens 
and Thackeray. Both moved frequently, so that 
there is no place which speaks of them as Carlyle's 
house does of him. Many of the haunts of Dickens 
may be identified as well as the originals of places 
that he mentions in his books. One of these is the 
corner store, the original of Old Curiosity Shop. In 
Doughty street and Devonshire Square are houses 
in which Dickens wrote some of his best work and 
his novels are full of vivid descriptions of London. 
Thackeray's home at No. 16 Young street, Ken- 
sington, is noteworthy as the scene of the writing of 
Vanity Fair, which brought him tardy fame. He died 
at No. 1 Palace Green, Kensington, on Christmas 
Eve, and his passing saddened thousands who had 
learned to love him, "because his heart was tender 
as is the heart of a woman." 

[148] 




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PLATE LV 

Carlyle's House in Cheyne Row, Chelsea. Here in This 

Plain Brick House the Author Lived From 1824 Until His Death 

in 1 88 1. It is a Museum of Carlyle Relics and Manuscripts, 

One of the Most Interesting Places in London, Yet Most 

Londoners Have Never Seen It. The Majority of 

Visitors Are Americans 




PLATE L\ I 

The Garden of Carlyle's House. A Sheltered, 

Sunny Place, With One Old Beech Tree and Vines on the 

High Brick Walls. Here Oarlyle Loved to Sit 

and Smoke and Think Out His Books 



NEW YORK, THE 

SKY-SCRAPING MARVEL OF 

THE NEW WORLD 



Impressions 

of New York After 

Seven Years 



The voyage across the Atlantic from Liver- 
pool to New York was uneventful. My 
steamer was the Baltic which was followed 
by the ill-fated Titanic. Few icebergs were seen, 
but slow time was made through the great New 
Foundland fog-belt. 

The first sight of the Statue of Liberty in New 
York harbor and of the ships flying the Stars and 
Stripes, looks very good to the man who has 
scarcely seen an American flag since he left home, 
seven months before. Then comes that awe-inspir- 
ing skyline of New York, which is changed by 
every new skyscraper-a spectacle more impressive 
than anything that can be seen in Europe. This 
skyline is as rugged and looms as dark and menac- 
ing against the clear blue background as a moun- 
tain wall of the high Sierra. Each skyscraper repre- 
sents a distinct peak that rises above the high table- 
land made by the mass of ordinary buildings, which 
a few years ago were regarded as lofty structures. 
A new and loftier peak has risen and swims into the 
ken of the new arrival who has not seen New York 
for several seasons. This is the towering Wool- 
worth building, which rises a full twenty stories 
above its lofty neighbors. 

Nothing in the Old World can compare for im- 
pressiveness with this skyline, which is the huge, 



['5'] 



The Critic in the Occident 

cyclopean finger-print of commerce against the sky 
of the New World. It is a fitting introduction to a 
city which is as unique as Venice or Florence. 

When one passes through the canyons of lower 
New York, into which the many narrow streets have 
been converted by clirT-like skyscrapers, it seems 
almost incredible that only twenty-four years ago 
the first of these distinctively American buildings 
was erected, in the face of bitter opposition and pes- 
simistic criticism. This pioneer structure was the 
Tower building on Lower Broadway, erected on a 
lot only twenty-one and a half feet wide. The build- 
ing was thirteen stories high, or about one hundred 
and sixty feet. The steel frame was to bear all the 
weight and the inclosing walls were to be only 
twelve inches thick. All New York was aroused 
over what conservative architects denounced as a 
dangerous innovation, which would result in seri- 
ous disaster. As it happened, the architect, Brad- 
ford Lee Gilbert, was able to demonstrate the 
stability of his plan at the outset. A hurricane blew 
on the day following the completion of the steel 
frame. Thousands gathered to watch the fall of the 
new structure, but it was not disturbed. That suc- 
cess led to the transformation of lower New York. 

Now it looks as though the skyscraper was 
destined to swarm over all Manhattan Island, for 
away up in Harlem, where only a few years ago the 
land was covered by the shacks of squatters, are 
rising huge apartment houses of fifteen and twenty 
stories, of the most ornate architecture, and with 
appointments so elaborate that the yearly rental of 
an apartment of eight or ten rooms amounts to 
twenty-five thousand dollars. 

New York has scores of great edifices, some on 
small side streets, which are gems of architectural 



Impressions of New York 

beauty. All along Broadway and Fifth Avenue one 
catches glimpses of these buildings, which are worth 
careful observation, as specimens of the art of adapt- 
ing the styles and methods of other ages and other 
lands to our needs. It is the boldness and original- 
ity of the American architect in this work that will 
appeal to any person who has made a study of the 
problems of this art. There is far less of the con- 
ventional in the work of our architects than in that 
of English artists, and the result is that the new 
buildings in New York please one far more than 
those of London. 

Henry James, after many years of absence in 
Europe, returned a few years ago to find New York 
what he called hideous, because of the skyscrapers 
and the encroachment of business as far up Fifth 
Avenue as Central Park. What he failed to take 
into consideration was that New York above every- 
thing else is a business city, not a city of homes 
like Philadelphia. Commerce is writ large on its 
skyscrapers, on its streets and in its subways. All 
other considerations have had to give way to this 
insistent demand for space for the great dynamos 
that move the business of the whole country. Yet 
with all this strenuous clamor for the swift and 
most economical transaction of trade, Henry James 
could have seen much beauty had his eyes not been 
blind to the many things that make this one of the 
most attractive cities in the world. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad depot is a massive 
building which satisfies the eye. Its most striking 
feature is the main waiting-room, three hundred 
and fifteen feet long, one hundred and eight feet 
wide and one hundred and fifty feet high, the larg- 
est and most imposing room in the world. This 
room is purely ornamental, as it does not contain a 

['S3] 



The Critic in the Occident 

single seat. Another feature of the building is the 
long arcade of shops, which contain everything that 
a traveler needs. This depot cost one hundred and 
thirteen million dollars. The New York Central 
depot cost one hundred and fifty million dollars 
and is the most complete railroad terminal in the 
world, with depressed tracks and trains run from 
the suburbs by electricity. Its architecture is fully 
as fine as that of the Pennsylvania depot. 

The most striking of the new buildings in New 
York is the Woolworth building on Broadway, just 
opposite the new Municipal building. This build- 
ing, which rises seven hundred and fifty feet above 
the street level, is the result of the profits of a score 
of years of the pioneer in the five and ten cent 
stores. With its fifty-seven stories this structure so 
dominates everything in the vicinity that even the 
huge Municipal buildings are dwarfed, and sky- 
scrapers that a few years ago were regarded as colos- 
sal now look like pygmies. The building has twenty- 
eight elevators, and one whole floor is given up to 
a dining-club. 

One of the finest of the new buildings is the 
Public Library, formed by the union of the Astor, 
the Lenox and the Free Public Libraries. It stands 
on Fifth avenue at Forty-second street on the lot 
so long occupied by the city reservoir. The archi- 
tecture is noble and impressive, the interior arrange- 
ments are admirable, the mural decorations are fine 
and appropriate, but there is no statuary, except the 
two badly designed lions that guard the main en- 
trance. Such a building abroad would have noble 
statues at the entrance and on every stair landing. 
Strip the public buildings of Rome, or Florence, or 
Paris of their statuary and you would rob them of 
the greater part of their impressiveness. 

[154] 



Barbaric 

Display of Wealth on 

Fifth Avenue 



In New York the one thing that impresses you, 
especially if you are fresh from the cities of the 
Old World, is the unlikeness of the place to 
any other. Here traditions of the Old World are 
thrown aside as useless lumber. Here for the first 
time we have a city which has absolutely no uni- 
formity in any of its salient features, yet is more 
interesting than Paris or London, because it con- 
stantly piques curiosity and arouses wonder or an- 
tagonism. You cannot be indifferent to New York; 
you cannot even rest in this great human hive that 
is always humming with eager life. If you stay in 
your room the hoarse roar of the street comes up 
and grips you by the throat; it is useless to try to 
escape its compelling force. Before you know it 
you are out on the street and in the thick of this 
strenuous life that goes to your head like strong 
wine. You set your pace by the moving throng be- 
side you, and it is the pace that kills. Before the 
day is over you are lucky if you escape blistered 
feet and aching limbs that make you feel as though 
you had taken a twenty-mile tramp over rough 
country. 

What there is in this ardent city life that saps 
the vitality of the stranger is a mystery, but anyone 
who comes to New York from quieter places will 
agree with me that three days in the American 

[155] 



The Critic in the Occident 

metropolis are more exhausting than two weeks in 
London. Whatever the cause, it requires long resi- 
dence to save one from the tendency to walk too 
far and too much, and to share too freely in the 
hustling spirit of the ever-moving crowds. 

Impressive is the spectacle of the crowded streets. 
Here are lesser crowds than in London, but in 
some way these crowds suggest a more tumultuous 
life, a greater eagerness for work, a fiercer desire for 
display, a more intense existence. Here too are 
more striking contrasts between rich and poor than 
London can furnish. On Fifth avenue and Broad- 
way colossal wealth seems to be hurled in your face; 
you can't escape it. In the elaborate automobile 
turnouts; in the extravagant costumes and the price- 
less jewels of the women who look at you with the 
cold eyes of disdain, as though they asked why any 
except the possessors of many millions should invade 
these sacred haunts of wealth; in the shops where 
no one of moderate means would dream of enter- 
ing to buy what is reserved for the plutocrat; in 
the obsequiousness of all who come in contact with 
this class— in all these the stranger who has not seen 
New York for some years feels this insistent de- 
mand of great wealth that it be recognized with 
more honor than is given abroad to crowned heads 
and ancient lineage. 

And yet a walk of ten minutes from this dis- 
play of colossal wealth will take one to the haunts 
of such extreme poverty and misery as may be seen 
in no city of the Old World. On the East Side of 
New York, in the crowded tenement buildings, in 
the unspeakable sweat-shops, where the life of thou- 
sands is slowly sapped; in the reek and squalor of 
the crowded streets, where the children of the poor 
never have a chance for normal development of 

[■56] 




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Barbaric Display of Wealth 
body or mind; in the great breeding houses of vice 
and crime, where whole families live in a single 
room and then take in boarders and lodgers; in the 
saloons that wink their evil eyes from every corner 
and to which women and children are slyly admitted; 
in the swirl of painted harlots, plying their ancient 
trade openly and unashamed-in all these features 
of East Side tenement life in New York, one may 
find the gravest indictment of the luxurious life of 
the very rich. These never give a thought to the 
thousands who are swarming into this country from 
all parts of the earth, and who are paying for the 
privilege by having all that is good and pure beaten 
out of their lives by the mere animal struggle for 
existence. 

If you are in New York any time during the 
summer or fall take a walk down through Hester, 
Orchard, Ludlow, Catherine and others of these 
tenement streets, and see with your own eyes this 
unspeakable misery and degradation, which is the 
worst indictment of our system of city government. 
It is not as though these people did not work. 
They labor like galley slaves until far into the 
night; they have no comforts, yet they never escape 
from the edge of the abyss of poverty and actual 
starvation. They are in the same evil state as the 
victims of the loan sharks: the harder they work the 
deeper they sink into the quick-sand of debt. It is 
because all the necessaries of life cost them ten times 
as much as they cost those who are able to buy in 
larger quantities, and also because they have no 
judgment in spending their small earnings. 

New York has too many fine sights to make it 
wise to spend very much time in the tenement 
quarter. Take Fifth avenue, for example, which, to 
me, is far more impressive than the finest residence 

[157] 



The Critic in the Occident 
quarter of London, because here the wealth is 
massed and concentrated. Park Lane and Hyde 
Park Place in London give one the impression of 
wealth that has been handed down for ages, until 
the present possessors are unconscious of it; but 
these splendid homes of great wealth are few in 
number, whereas, in New York there are miles of 
imposing houses, each of which requires the income 
of a multi-millionaire to keep it up. Many of these 
houses are flamboyant in architecture and are furn- 
ished regardless of all that is genuinely artistic; but 
taken in mass they have the same effect upon the 
beholder as the endless rows of skyscrapers in lower 
New York. They force upon you this idea of enor- 
mous wealth from which there is no escape. 

And this impression of vast wealth is thrust 
upon you again on Fifth avenue on such occasions 
as the Easter fashion show, which, though it has 
now degenerated largely into a rivalry of great dress- 
making establishments, is still one of the spring 
sights of the city, which draws thousands from all 
parts of the country. On this noble avenue, which 
has now ample sidewalk space from Twenty-third 
street to the park at Fifty-ninth street, great crowds 
gather a full hour before the show. Then, when 
the church services are over, two lines form, one 
going up the avenue, the other coming down. In 
these lines are many brilliantly-gowned women, 
who probably make a braver show with their ex- 
quisitely-designed garments than real ladies would 
do. For most of these women are the professional 
models whose business it is to show off these gar- 
ments in the shops, and who are selected from many 
thousands for their perfection of form and their grace 
of carriage. These things wealth cannot buy, and 
there is some satisfaction in the thought that the 

[158] 



Barbaric Display of Wealth 

daughters of the poor have their innings in this 
great fun&ion, to which otherwise they would have 
no admission. 

Much of the charm of Fifth avenue is due, as 
Arnold Bennett says, to the magnificent cornices, 
which the architects have provided for these great 
retail stores that have taken the place of the palaces 
of millionaires. These cornices furnish a fine sky- 
line and they serve to bring out the ornamental 
upper story, which is almost universal. The Italian 
Renaissance is the prevailing architecture of these 
new palaces of trade. There are infinite variations 
in it, but its beauty, grace and lightness seem to 
harmonize with the brilliant blue of the sky and 
the limpid clearness of the atmosphere. Clubs and 
hotels and the homes of many firms which are known 
all over the country make up this, the finest avenue 
in the world. A few of the old residences, which 
once gave the street its prestige, remain, but they 
are doomed. A few years will see them transformed 
and they will go the way of the others. The Vander- 
bilts still take up one entire block with the houses 
which were once celebrated as the finest in the city, 
but which are now surpassed by the homes of men 
who were roustabouts and miners, or brakemen on 
new railroads forty years ago, when the Vanderbilt 
houses were new. 



[■59] 



New York's 

Big Museum and Many 

Parks 



among the things in New York which no one 
/\ should neglect is the Metropolitan Museum 
J_ \^o( Art in Central Park. Here is a museum 
designed in the ideal way as a school of art for the 
public. Besides paintings of all the great masters, 
ancient and modern, it includes a large number of 
characteristic works by the best American painters. 
George A. Hearn gave one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars, the income of which is applied to the 
purchase of paintings by living American artists. 
But the feature of the place which struck me as the 
most valuable from an educational point of view 
was the collection of plaster casts and models, now 
one of the largest in the world. 

Besides plaster models of all the great works of 
sculpture, this collection includes models of the 
architectural masterpieces of Egypt, Greece, Rome 
and the modern world. Here are large models of 
the Hypostile Hall at Karnak, the Parthenon of 
Athens, the Pantheon of Rome, and the Cathedral 
of Notre Dame in Paris. The latter especially is a 
wonderful reproduction of one of the finest speci- 
mens of Gothic architecture in Europe. It is a 
liberal education in art to be able to study these 
models, which are large enough to enable one to 
appreciate all the detail of each work. The paint- 
ings are admirably arranged for study. 

[i 60] 



New York's Museum and Parks 

New York is not rich in parks, the largest be- 
ing Central Park, which has an area of eight hun- 
dred and forty acres. Although artistically laid out 
and kept in wonderful condition, the park lacks 
picturesqueness because of the general low level of 
the ground. There is no height from which one 
may get a general view; but the drives are finely 
arranged and the color scheme in flowers, vines and 
trees could not be improved upon. The finest of 
the new parks is the Riverside Park, on a high 
ridge skirting the Hudson and overlooking the 
Palisades and the New Jersey shore. The River- 
side drive is the best in New York. It is a pity 
certain restrictions had not been enforced on pur- 
chasers of these building sites, as then a good land- 
scape artist could have made this drive the noblest 
in the world. As it is, it is well worth careful atten- 
tion as a specimen of what great wealth may accom- 
plish in a few years. 

Many of the old squares in New York are ex- 
tremely picturesque. Of these the finest are Gra- 
mercy Park on the East Side, once surrounded by 
the homes of distinguished citizens, but now largely 
given over to business and manufacture; and Wash- 
ington Square, which still preserves much of its old- 
time air. Here is the Washington Arch that is 
more perfect than any work of its kind in this 
country. Through this arch, looking north, one 
may get a superb view of the new Fifth avenue. 

Around Central Park the feature that will im- 
press anyone who has not seen New York in sev- 
eral years is the great increase in the number of 
colossal apartment houses. These bulk enormously 
against the skyline, many of them rising to twelve 
or fifteen stories and having hundreds of rooms, 
leased at rentals as lofty as their own towering roofs. 

[161] 



The Critic in the Occident 
The tremendous roar of the elevated roads in 
New York always stirs the gorge of the foreigner, 
but the American, who is more used to noise, soon 
becomes accustomed to it. Still, in streets like Sixth 
avenue and the Bowery, the overhead trains and 
eledtric surface cars, with gongs constantly sounding, 
do make a pandemonium during eighteen hours of 
the day. The subway is the greatest convenience to 
the visitor, as he may get aboard an express train 
at One Hundred and Fiftieth street and go to the 
Battery in about twenty minutes, a ride which used 
to consume over an hour. These trains stop only 
at long intervals and run at high speed. 

But beyond any of the other sights in New 
York is the people, who crowd all the surface, ele- 
vated and underground cars. It is easy to distin- 
guish the New Yorker from the stranger, and it is 
not difficult to pick out the visitor from the Pa- 
cific Coast, the Canadian or the people from Chi- 
cago and the Mississippi Valley, while the South- 
erner differs radically from all the others in dress, 
manners and speech. This endless tide of humanity 
furnishes an interesting study of racial traits. 

I have merely touched on a few of the sights of 
New York, which make it, despite its lack of his- 
torical interest, more absorbing than any city of 
Europe. It differs absolutely from Rome, or Paris, 
or London; it is newer, cruder, if you will, but it 
grips you as none of these older cities does, and it 
lingers in the memory as something which you can- 
not explain. It is the greatest symbol of American 
material achievement, while at the same time it 
represents all that has been accomplished in the do- 
main of the ideal by a people who are far more 
given to spiritual things than any of the nations 
of the Old World. 

[162] 







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PLATE LVI1I 

The Woolworth Building, New York. The Tallest 

Building in the World, Seven Hundred and Ninety-iwo Feet High, 

With Fifty-five Stories and Twenty-eight Elevators; the Highest 

Structure Except the Eiffel Tower. A Monument to American 

Thrift and Opportunity, as the Thirteen Million Dollars 

Investment is the Result of Thirty Years' Work 

by a Poor New York Country Clerk, Who 

Originated the Five and Ten Ctnt Stores 

(Copyright by 

Underwood and Underwood, 

New York) 




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PLATE LX 

Looking South on Broadway, New York, 

Through the Canyon Made by Lefty Buildings; The 

Singer Building With the Flagstaff 

(Copyright by 

Underwood and Underwood 

New York) 




PLATE LXI 
The New York Public Library at Night. One of the Im- 
pressive New Buildings of New York, With Ample Space to Di. 
play Its Architectural Beauties from Fifth Avenue 
(Copyright by 
Underwood and Underwood 
New York) 




PLATE LXII 

Wall Street, Looking Toward Trini y Church. The Financial 

Center of the New World. Trinity and Its Ground Represents Twenty 

Million Dollars in Value. No. I Wall Street, an Eighteen Story 

Building Only Twenty-eight by Thirty-two Feet is 

Built on the Most Valuable Bit of Ground 

in the World 

(Copyright by 

Underwood and Underwood, 

New York) 




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PLATE LXIII 

New Municipal Building, New York. Largest Public Building 
in Th's Country Except the Capital at Washington. Height Five 
Hundred and Eighty Feet; Forty Storits ; Cost Eigh- 
teen Million Dollars, Including the Site 
(Copyright by 
Underwood and Underwood, 
New York) 



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APPENDIX 



Tips for the Tourist 

Hints for Seeing Things and Buying 

Things That May Help 

the Traveler 

Much of the comfort of traveling in Europe depends upon the 
smallness and compactness of your baggage. If you carry 
even a small steamer trunk, you will wish before you get back to 
England that the sea had swallowed it up early in your voyage. A 
trunk is a constant source of worry and expense. As nothing is 
ever checked in Europe, you must make sure personally that this 
piece of baggage is on every train and boat. If you don't look after 
it yourself, the chances are that it will be left on dock or station 
platform. Every time it is moved you not only pay stiff freight 
charges, but tip every porter who even looks at it. 

Even a woman can get all her belongings in a large suit case 
and a hold-all, which is a god-send to the Continental traveler. 
These are stowed in your compartment on every train, and it is no 
trouble to look after them and to point them out to the porter. 
Your steamer trunk you can leave in London or Paris in storage, 
or you can ship it to other large cities, if you are a woman and 
must have room for fluffy ruffles and evening gowns. But don't 
take your trunk on tours of France, Italy or other Continental 
countries, unless you have unlimited patience and money. You can 
buy a large leather suit case in London for ten dollars that is better 
than can be bought in any American city for thirty dollars. This 
will last, as the leather is honest and all the sewing is done bv hand, 
and will not give way. The hold-alls have water-proof cases and 
they are marvels of capacitv. 

It is useless to carry much clothing, but some things you 
should never take any chance of wearing out. These are collars, 
shoes, and dental supplies. Every American has a special collar 
which fits his neck. Therefore don't sail with a small stock and 
trust to luck in supplying yourself abroad ; you will work yourself 
into a dangerous rage in this quest. The same may be said of shoes. 
Several American shoe manufacturers do an enormous business 
abroad as their shoes are far superior to those made in Europe; but 
a man's own last and number they are sure not to keep in stock. 

['65] 



Tips for the Tourist 

As much of the enjoyment of travel depends upon the condition of 
your feet, you can't afford to take any risks with strange shoes. 

In selecting steamship lines, the North German Lloyd is the 
surest for comfort. In crossing the Atlantic, it is always best to 
take the slower boats, because these are not infested with the Amer- 
ican plutocrat, who has not recovered from the shock of sudden 
wealth, and his pestilent brood of spoiled children. All these unde- 
sirable Americans crowd into the newest, swiftest and most luxuri- 
ous boats. You pay an extra price for berths on such boats and 
you get nothing in return except the opportunity to study the un- 
speakable manners of the insolent and uncultured rich, who devour 
squab and lobster a la Newberg with appetites that reveal recent 
training on corned beef and cabbage. 

In the Mediterranean and the Orient the North German 
Lloyd steamers are always to be preferred, as the Italian lines are 
to be avoided. On one of these big German liners, everything 
moves like clockwork. Strains of music wake you at seven-thirty 
in the morning, breakfast is served promptly at eight, lunch at one 
and dinner at seven. The menu at all these meals is lavish in good 
things, with entrees and desserts at dinner, which are masterpieces 
of the chef's skill. Besides the regular meals there are coffee and 
rolls at early morning served in your room or on deck, lemonade 
or tea with sandwiches at eleven in the morning and at four in the 
afternoon, and lemonade again on deck at half past nine in the even- 
ing. An orchestra composed of members of the ship's staff discourse 
music on deck at four in the afternoon, and at dinner it plays a 
selection of good music and plays it very well. As these ships aver- 
age three hundred and fifty miles a day and always sail and arrive 
on time, is it any wonder that they are popular with Americans? 

Travel in Greece is still primitive. The trains are slow and 
seldom on time: in winter there is no heat. A lunch basket is a 
necessity as the stations furnish only the food of the country, which 
looks better than it tastes. The Asiatic Lloyds is the best steamer 
line from Italy to Greece. Don't patronize the Greek or Italian 
lines, or you will regret it. The boats are small and dirty, the food 
is poor, and the service worse. 

In Italy the chief discomfort of travel to the American arises 
from the national objection to fresh air. In winter the stuffiness of 
the cars is almost unbearable. To open a window is to invite a 
near riot. The only wav to avoid trouble is to stand in the corri- 
dor where the opening of the door gives some fresh air at intervals. 

In Naples get rooms at any of the hotels along the harbor- 
front, near the Castel del'Ovo. If you go on the hill, you pay 



['66] 



Tips for the Tourist 

double price, and every time you stir out you must take a tram-car 
or a carriage and waste a halt hour in reaching the heart of the city. 
The Hotel Santa Lucia was recommended to me and I found there 
good rooms and board at three dollars a day, with a table that it is 
a pleasure to recall. The chef was an artist and the maitre d'hotel 
arranged for something new and appetizing every day. It was like 
home with far more than the ordinary home comforts. 

In Naples, spend as much time as possible in the museum 
which is one of the richest in Europe. If you are a man, don't 
fail to see the secret room in this museum, which will give you 
more light on the reason why Rome fell than all the histories. Also 
make two visits to Pompeii. On the first it is well to go with a 
Cook's party. Then go again, take your lunch, and stay all day. 
This is the only way to get the real spirit of the place. 

In Rome the best method of absorbing the spirit of old Roman 
life is to attend the walking lectures. Professor L. Reynaud I found 
very entertaining and instructive. His lectures on the Vatican, 
the Forum, the Capitoline Hill, and his trips to the Appian Way, 
Tivoli and Hadrian's Villa were rich in instruction. His schedule 
of lectures may be found at any of the hotels or tourist agencies. 

Don't be inveigled into an English pension in Rome. These 
places are usually in old, musty buildings, in noisy streets, with a 
common table at which your neighbor may sup his soup and eat 
with his knife. One of the pleasantest places in Rome is the Hotel 
Boston, which caters to Americans. It is on the Pincian Hill where 
the air is good, and you can get room and excellent board for two 
dollars a day. 

There are many temptations to spend money in Rome, especi- 
ally for jewelry and curios. Don't buy any Roman pearls unless 
you have the advice of an expert. Most of them are made by 
Tecla of Paris. Don't buy antiques unless you have an expert's ad- 
vice. The Italian is a past master in manufacturing antiques. If 
you buy any small articles in marble or lava in Rome or other 
Italian cities, do not trust the dealer to pack them. As a rule the 
shop-keepers are very careless in packing and if you trust them, you 
are apt to find your statuettes without arms or noses. There are 
several pretentious shops near the Piazza di Spagna, which make a 
specialty of Roman pearls, but they are to be avoided, as they 
charge five or ten times the price asked for the same goods in Ven- 
ice or Paris. 

Naples is famous for its coral and lava work, as Rome is for 
its artificial pearls and its jewelry. Florence is also one of the best 
cities in Europe for the purchase of jewelry. The work is artistic 



[167] 



Tips for the Tourist 

and the prices are much more reasonable than in Rome. A place 
which is a favorite with Americans is Fratelli Cappini at Borgo 
S. Lacopo 6. This shop is across the Arno in a mean little alley. In 
front are the goods and directly behind are rows of benches at 
which are working young men and women making the jewelry. 
You can buy there necklaces of oxidized silver, with lapis lazuli, 
topaz, and other stones, for one fifth what you pay in this country. 
Florence is rich also in artistic articles of leather and morocco. 
Venice is famous for its jewelry, its lace and its work in leather. 
Venetian point lace is sold at about fifteen dollars a yard. Every- 
thing made in Venice has the color and aroma of the Orient. 

In Paris the tourist must depend largely on Baedeker and his 
own special tastes. The only way to get the real feel of the Latin 
Quarter and of old Paris is to walk through its streets and spend 
time in absorbing impressions. As for buying things, Paris is a sore 
temptation to one who must economize to reach home. 

The best way to get around London quickly is by the tubes, 
which are quicker than the subway in New York. The penny 
motor bus is a great convenience for shorter distances. London is 
one of the best places in Europe to buy things, especially clothing. 
What puzzles an American is the cheapness of furnishing goods and 
clothing. 

Why should a London shop be able to make good shirts of 
zephyr with an extra pair of cuffs for one dollar and a half each, 
for which an American dealer charges you four dollars and a half 
each? The English shirt will wear about three times as long as the 
American, and you are never bothered with seams ripping or buttons 
coming loose. You can get a suit of tweed made to order in Lon- 
don with an extra pair of trousers for twenty-five dollars. For a 
similar suit in this country you will pay from forty-five to fifty 
dollars. 

In buying things in Europe or the Orient one must always 
take into consideration the duty which must be paid in New York. 
One hundred dollars worth of clothes and small articles are passed 
free of duty. But a friend of mine, who bought two small table 
covers in Hongkong for which she paid seventy-five cents each, 
was amazed when the New York inspectors insisted that these were 
worth five dollars apiece and charged her three dollars duty on each. 

New York dazes the foreigner and it has much of this same 
effect upon the American who has not seen it for several years. 
With the "rubber neck" wagon, the auto-buses and the subway 
trains you can see the city very well in two or three days. 



[168] 



Bibliography 

Books Which Throw Light on the 

History, Art and People of 

European Countries 

Iittle can be done in this bibliography, except to in- 
delicate the books that I found most helpful. On 
Italian art alone, several hundred books have been 
written. What I have tried to do here is to mention 
the books that best will repay reading, before the reader 
sees the countries that are described in this volume. 
'The more thoroughly you master these books, the greater 
will be the benefit you will derive from seeing things 
with your own eyes. If you read nothing but the guide 
books, you will gain very little from a European trip, 
as the guide books do not feed the imagination. 

GREECE 

The best general work on Greece is Mahaffv's Rambles and 
Studies in Greece. Professor Mahaffy is one of the greatest living 
authorities on Greek literature and archeology. He is saturated 
with the Greek classics, but he never displays his learning, except 
to illustrate a subject. His chapters on Athens, and especially his 
description of the Parthenon, are very fine. It will be well also to 
read his book, What Have the Greeks Done for Civilization P 

An invaluable book on Greek statuary and architecture is The 
Art of the Greeks, by H. B. Walters, with many fine full-page re- 
productions of photographs. The British Museum has printed in 
large folio many plates of the Elgin marbles, with detailed descrip- 
tions of all the treasures of the colleftion. Another excellent work 
is The Acropolis of Athens, by Martin L. D'Ooge, which reviews 
all the great archeological discoveries in Greece up to 1908, with 
an abundance of clear illustrations from photographs. Other good 
books on Greece and Athens are Studies and Sketches in Italy and 
Greece, by J. A. Symonds; The Customs and Lore of Modern 
Greece, by J. Rennell Rodd, and Robert Hichens descriptions of 

[169] 



Bibliography 

Dalmatia and Greece, illustrated by Guerin, which are appearing 
in Scribner's Magazine. The best short works on Greek art are 
Walter's The Art of the Greeks, and Gardiner's Handbook of Greek 
Sculpture. For one who wishes merely an outline of Greek art, 
the best summary is Percy Gardner's monograph of twenty-two 
pages in the Encyclopedia Britannica. 

ITALY 

So large is the collection of really good books on Italy that the 
most rigid selection is necessary. The one book which I found 
more valuable than any other is The Ideal Italian Tour, by Henry 
James Forman, a young American writer. It is sympathetic, and 
the author has a most picturesque touch. Next to this I should 
place Roman Holidays and Others, by William Dean Howells, full 
of humor and wisdom, by one of the best observers of our day. In 
Henry James's Transatlantic Sketches, and in Hawthorne's Notes of 
Travel, will be found many good things about Rome, Naples and 
Florence. A book that reproduces the feelings of the tourist who 
is fond of literature and art is The Spell of Italy, by Caroline At- 
water Mason. John Addington Symonds' Sketches and Studies in 
Italy ana Greece, is valuable, as Symonds is one of the best English 
interpreters of the romance and beauty of Italian and Greek life 
and literature. For vivid description of Italian cities, especially of 
Venice and Florence, see Theophile Gautier's Travels in Italy, 
forming the fourth volume of his collected works, in an English 
translation. Here one of the greatest of modern artists in words, 
gives his impressions of Venice by night, and of the art and archi- 
tecture of Florence. Equally skilful, but more modern is Henry 
James in Italian Hours, which has been made into a beautiful book 
by fine full-page illustrations in color by Joseph Pennell. Katharine 
Hooker in Wayfarers in Italy, has written one of the best appre- 
ciations of this land of art and natural beauty. 

NAPLES 

The most picturesque city in Italy does not seem to have 
been a favorite with travelers. They are fond of referring to its 
noises, its odors and its other repulsive traits; but its perfect harbor, 
its attractive heights, and its swarming street life will always linger 
in the memory. Howells gives several chapters to the city in 
Roman Holidays and Others, and there are good chapters devoted 
to the city in Italian Lanes and Highways, by Russell Wood- 
ward Leary, a book of clever description. Albert Osbourne de- 
votes an appreciative chapter to Naples and its surroundings in 

[l 7 0] 



Bibliography 

Finding the Worth While in Europe: this book is of real value 
because it gives the results of many years of travel. Naples, the 
City of Parthenope, by Clara Erskine Clement, gives a complete 
history of the art and people of a city, which legend says was 
founded by a goddess cast upon this favored shore. 

On Pompeii one of the best books is Pompeii, Its Life and 
Art, by August Mau of the German Archeological Institute of 
Rome. It has elaborate plans of the various houses and many good 
illustrations. Bulwer in The Last Days of Pompeii, furnishes a 
graphic description of the life of this old Italian pleasure city, and 
of the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed it. 

ROME 

A large library has been written on ancient Rome and its re- 
mains. Two of the best books are Ruins and Remains of Ancient 
Rome, and Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, by 
Rudolph Lanciani. These with his Wanderings in the Roman 
Campagna, give a very comprehensive sketch of the ancient city. 
Middleton's, The Remains of Ancient Rome, is readable. For the 
art of Rome, the best short book is Roman Sculpture, by Mrs. 
Arthur Strong, which gives reproductions of photographs of all the 
great statues and reliefs. Rome, by Esther Singleton, is a valuable 
book containing chapters by Maeterlinck, Crawford, Dickens, 
Ouida, Hawthorne, Zola, Gibbon, Hugh Macmillan and others. 
In all literature I know nothing so full of suggestion to one who 
has seen Rome as Maeterlinck's chapter in this book. It is a poet's 
impressions of the Eternal City. Very fine also are the chapters on 
the Vatican and the Palatine Hill by Zola. The monograph in the 
Encyclopedia Britannica on Ancient Rome, by John Henry Middle- 
ton and Henry Stuart Jones, is very complete and has numerous 
plans and maps. Read Byron's Childe Harold, for its pen-pictures 
of Rome. His verses on the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Ap- 
pian Way are worth many readings. The scene of many of 
Marian Crawford's novels are laid in Rome, and this American 
novelist, who was half-Italian because of his long residence at Sor- 
rento, has given in his novels many truthful pictures of Roman life 
and character. Especially good are Corleone, Cecilia, The Heart of 
Rome, and Saracinesca and its sequels. 

FLORENCE 

A small library of books has been written on Florence, which 
has been the favorite winter home of the English for twenty years. 
Here was the home of Robert Browning and his wife; here Mrs. 



['7i] 



Bibliography 

Browning wrote her Casa Guidi Windows and Aurora Leigh, and 
here she died and was buried. For general sketches of Florence no 
book contains more vivid work than Romola, for George Eliot loved 
Florence and knew it well. For the architecture and the art of 
Florence no guide is better than Ruskin, although he is an extrem- 
ist and one may not be able always to follow him in his great en- 
thusiasms. Useful books are Florentine Palaces and Their Stories, 
by Janet Ross; Florence and Some Tuscan Cities, by Clarrissa Goff, 
with colored illustrations by Colonel R. C. Goff; The Road in 
Tuscany, by Maurice Hewlett, which gives charming glimpses of 
Florence with much out-of-the-way information. Grant Allen's 
Historical Guide to Florence will be found valuable, especially for 
its information on art and architecture, as well as A Wanderer in 
Florence, by E. V. Lucas. 

VENICE 

Of course the great book about this city is Ruskin's The 
Stones of Venice. You can get what you want out of it without 
going through all the volumes. The best things are about the 
Square of St. Mark's and the Doges' Palace. More attractive to 
the American reader is Howells' Venetian Life, which is as good 
as when it was written nearly fifty years ago. Howells was a 
Consul in those days before he became a novelist, and this book is 
written by one who had learned to love the Venetians and their 
unique city. For the Venice of the period read F. Hopkinson 
Smith's Gondola Days. He interprets Venice with the skill of an 
artist and he gives many charming glimpses of the days of the 
Republic from old writers. A small book which is of much value 
for its text and pictures is Things Seen in Venice. 

PARIS 

The Stones of Paris, by Benjamin Ellis Martin, gives good 
sketches of the history of the city and its literary characters, with 
a fine chapter devoted to Victor Hugo; The By-ways of Paris, and 
Nooks and Corners of Old Paris, by George Cain, curator of the 
Carnavalet Museum and one of the authorities on Old Paris, are 
richly illustrated; The Color of Paris, by members of the Goncourt 
Academy, is excellent for description and for the colored plates of 
Parisian scenes; very clever sketches of the artists' quarters may be 
found in Bohemian Days in Paris, written by W. C. Morrow, 
from notes by Edouard Cucuel, and with many capital sketches by 
this French artist. Paris, by Esther Singleton, is a fine volume 
with selections from Victor Hugo, Balzac, Hamerton, Renan, Pros- 



[172] 



Bibliography 

per Merimee, Zola, Gautier and others. E. V. Lucas' A Wan- 
derer in Paris, would be valuable alone for its hints for seeing the 
best things in the Louvre and the other museums. 

LONDON 

One of the best books on London is A Wanderer in London, 
by E. V. Lucas, with many illustrations. The author keeps far 
from the guide book, but no one can fail to get valuable hints from 
his pages, especially in regard to the historical and literary features 
of the city. Another good book, light and sketchy, is Three 
Weeks in the British Isles, by John U. Higginbothan. Our House 
and London Out of Our Windows, by Elizabeth Robins Penneli,is 
noteworthy for the charming and unusual views of London by 
Joseph Pennell, especially of the river views. Other good books 
are: London Vanished and Vanishing, by Philip Norman; London, 
by Walter Besant ; The Scenery of London, by G. E. Milton, with 
pictures by Herbert M. Marshall ; In London Tozvn, very graphic 
sketches with illustrations by F. Berkeley Smith, of the theaters and 
the night life of Piccadilly and Leicester Square ; Bohemia in Lon- 
don, by Arthur Ransome, with clever pen and ink sketches by 
Fred Taylor; The Thackeray Country, by Lewis Melville, with 
many pictures of the homes of the novelist and the scenes of his 
works; The Dickens Country, by Frederick G. Kilton, which does 
the same service for the author of Pickwick. Walks in London, by 
Augustus J. C. Hare, in two volumes, is as good as when it was 
first written forty years ago. It is rich in quotations from many 
authors. London Films, by William Dean Howells, contains charm- 
ing glimpses of famous places by one who has a genius for pictur- 
esque description. Howells, more than any other of our writers, 
makes one feel the kinship of the American to historic shrines of 
London. 

NEW YORK 

One of the best books on the American metropolis is The 
New New York, by John C. Van Dyke, with many fine illustra- 
tions by Joseph Pennell. It sums up the enormous changes made 
in the city in the last twenty years. A good guide book for pic- 
tures is The Art of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, by 
David C. Preyer. Other books are: Moses King's Handbook of 
New York; F. B. Kelley's Historical Guide to the City of New 
York; The Wayfarer in New Tori, edited by E. S. Martin; New 
York, by Theodore Roosevelt; New York Old and New, by R. C. 
Wilson. 



[ J 73] 



Index 



Abelard and HeloisEj monument 
to, in Pere-Lachaise, i 20 

Acropolis of Athens, 20-28; its 
unrivaled artistic treasures, 20- 
21 ; the Parthenon, 21-24-26; 
the Erechtheum, 24 -the Propy- 
lea, 24; the Museum, 28 

Actium, one of the great naval 
battles of" the world, 1 7 

Aden, at Gateway of Red Sea, 5- 
8 ; one of hottest places in 
world, 5 • British Army Post, 
5 ; the Perseus cocktail, 5 ; the 
big native city, 6 • salt works of 
Sheik Othman, 7 ■ trade in os- 
trich feathers, 8 

Appian Way, great Roman road 
from Rome to Brindisi, 53-68- 
69 

Arab, traits of, 6-7 ; along the 
Suez Canal, 13-14 

Athena, Pallas, gold and ivory 
statue of, by Phidias, 25 

Athens, Capital of Greece and 
source of all that is best in lit- 
erature and art, 20-32; Mount 
Hymettus and Lykobettos, 21 ; 
the Parthenon, 22-26; Theater 
of Dionysius, 23; Theater of 
Herodes Atticus, 23 ; the Pro- 
pylea, 24; the Erechtheum, 24; 
the Elgin marbles, 26; Acrop- 
olis Museum, 28-29; National 
Museum, 29-30; Arch of Ha- 
drian, 30; monument of Lysi- 
krates, 30; the Theseion, 31 ; 
Macaulay's tribute to Athens, 

3 2 
Bartholome, sculptor of the mon- 
ument to the dead in Pere-La- 
chaise, Paris, I 20 



Brindisi, southern end of old Ap_ 
pian Way, 1 5 ; now transfer 
point on line from England to 
India, 1 5 

Byron, his work for Greek inde- 
pendence, 18; his death at 
Missolonghi, 17; his amusing 
letters, 1 8- fine pictures of 
Rome in Childe Harold, 70 

Byzantine, church of Kahnikarea, 
Athens, 30 

Caesar, Julius, bust in Naples 
Museum, 5 1 ; built Basilica 
Julia, 56 

Carnavalet, museum illustrating 
the history of Paris, 1 1 7- 1 1 8 

Cingalese, natives of Colombo, 

3-4 
Cluny, rich museum in Paris, 117 

Colleoni, Bartolomeo, Italian sol- 
dier commemorated by the best 
statue in Venice, 92 

Colombo, Capital of Ceylon, 3- 
4 • Tamils, the common labor- 
ers, 3 • world's greatest pearl 
market, 4 ; door to the Orient, 4 

Colosseum, the amphitheater built 
by the Flavians, 66-68 ; de- 
spoiled by the Popes, 67 ; where 
Christians were thrown to the 
lions, 67-68 

Corfu, Greek island off the Al- 
banian coast, 15-17; Achilleon, 
German Emperor's villa, 16- 
17; ancient olive trees, 16 

Corinth, canal which pierces the 
isthmus of Corinth, Greece, 
18-19 

De Lesseps, Ferdinand, promoter 
of the Panama Canal, 10; lav- 
ish extravagance which ruined 



['74] 



Index 

Ismail, 1 1 • statue at Port Said, Herculaneum, Italian city des- 

10 troyed on same day as Pom- 

Dionysius, Greek theater of, at peii, 41-51 

Athens, 23 Hichens, Robert, description of 

Doges' Palace, Venice, 89-90 the Parthenon, xv 

Elgin Marbles in British Mu- Hints to tourists, 165-17 1 

seum, 26, 140 Homer, head of Greek poet found 

Emperor William of Germany, in Herculaneum, 51 



winter villa on Corfu, 16 
Empress Elizabeth of Austria, 
builder of Achilleon at Corfu, 



Hugo, Victor, his home in Paris, 
1 1 8- 1 19; "Notre Dame de 
Paris," 1 1 2-1 13 



16: her tomb in the villa Italy, the land of art and scenic 



grounds, 1 7 
Florence, Tuscan capital famous 
for art and architecture, 76- 
83 ; the Loggia dei Lanzi, ~]~]- 
78 ; the Palazzo Vecchio, 79; 
scene of Savonarola's death, 79- 
80 ; the Duomo or Cathedral, 
77-80; the Campanile and the 
Baptistry, 80-8 I ; the Uffizi and 
Pitti galleries, 81-83; the aca< ^ 



beauty, 35-92; Naples, rich in 
ancient art, 3 5-43 ; Pompeii, 
which reveals old Roman life, 
44-51; Rome, the most inter- 
esting city in Europe, 52-65; 
the Appian Way, 66-72 ; Tiv- 
oli and Hadrian's villa, 73-75; 
Florence and its art treasures, 
76-83; Venice, the city of 
romance, 84-92 



emy of fine arts, 82; Michel- Ithaca, home of Ulysses and Pen- 
angelo's David, 82-83; tombs elope, 17 

James, Henry, comment on New 

York, 153 
Louvre, great art museum of 

Paris, 1 08- 1 1 1 
London, England's capital and 
world's largest city, 12 3- 1. 



of the Medicis, 83 

French Revolution, relics of, in 
Carnavalet Museum, 1 1 7 

Gambetta, monument to, in Paris, 
116 

Genoa, birthplace of Columbus, 
95; fine sixteenth century pal- 
aces, 95; great Italian seaport, 

Greece, fountainhead of literature 
and art, 15-32; Corfu, ofF the 
Albanian coast, 16-17; Patras, 
port of commerce, 18; Corinth 
and the canal, 19; Athens and 
the Acropolis, 20-28 

Hadrian, his arch at Athens, 30; 
one of the greatest of Roman 
builders, 66; tomb at Rome, 
23-24; villa at Tivoli, 74-75 



famous buildings and squares, 
124; motor buses and tubes, 
125; splendor of the West End, 
I 29; St. Paul's, I 29-1 30; West- 
minster Abbey, 1 30-131; the 
Temple, 1 31-144; the Tower, 
132-135; the Parliament build- 
ings, 136-137; in the Com- 
mons, 137-139; in the House 
of Lords, 139; the British Mu- 
seum, 140-14I; the National 
Gallery, 142; the Tate Gal- 
lery, 142- the Wallace collec- 



[175] 



Ind 

tion, 143; South Kensington 
Museum, 143- literary shrines 
and haunts, 144-148' relics or 
Shakespeare, 145; reminders or' 
De Quincey, 146- homes of" 
Dickens and Thackeray, 1 47- 
148- Carlyle's house, 1 46- 1 47 

Lyons, important manufacturing 
city of France, 10 1- handles 
half the silk of the world, 101 

Lysikrates, who erecled a cho- 
ragic monument at Athens, 30 

Macaulay, tribute to the influ- 
ence of Athens, 32 

Metropolitan Museum of art, 
New York, 160 

Messina, small rehabilitation 
since great earthquake of 1909, 

35 
Missolonghi, Greek port where 

Lord Byron died of fever, 17 
Monte Carlo, the world's most 
famous gambling place, 97- 
101 • property of the Prince of 
Monaco, 97-98- decoration of 
the Casino, 98; method of 
gambling at roulette and bacca- 
rat, 99-100- scenes in the Ca- 
sino, 1 00-101 • apocryphal 
stories of suicide, 101 
Naples, Italian city of art and 
natural beauty, 35-43 ; Posilipo, 
Sorrento and Capri, 36- closely 
built, 37- one of noisest cities 
in world, 37 • Via Roma, form- 
erly the Toledo, 37-38; Villa 
Nazionale, 40; Aquarium, 40- 
41- Galleria Umberto Primo, 
41 ; National Museum, 41-42 ; 
swarming street life, 43 
Napoleon, his tomb in Paris, ix- 
105-107 ;two triumphal arches, 
105 ; souvenirs in th Invalides, 



EX 

106-107- Regalia in the Lou- 
vre, 109 

New York, recent changes in, 
151-162- first sight oi' Statue of 
Liberty, 1 51 j the sky-line of 
skyscrapers, 152* costly rail- 
road depots, 153-154. wealth 
displayed on Fifth avenue, I 5 5- 
1 56; misery in tenement quart- 
er, 158; Central Park, 160- 
161 • Metropolitan Museum, 
160- Riverside Park, 161 ; 
swift transit on the subway, 
162 

Nice, famous winter resort on the 
Riviera, 95-96- Boulevard des 
Anglais, 96 

Paris, Capital of France and lead- 
ing pleasure city of Europe, 
102-120; magnificent vistas, 
102-103; avenues and boule- 
vards, 103; importance of the 
Seine, 104; Napoleon's tomb, 
105-106 • Hotel des Invalides, 
105-106; treasures of the Lou- 
vre, 1 08- 1 1 1 ; the Luxembourg 
Gallery, 1 1 1 ; Notre Dame de 
Paris, I 1 2- 1 1 3 ; the Madeleine , 
113; the Pantheon, 113-114; 
the Grand Opera-house, 1 1 4- 
I 1 5; Arches of Triumph, 1 1 5- 
116; the Gambetta monument, 
116; Cluny and Carnavalet Mu- 
seums, 1 1 7-1 1 8 ;Vic~tor Hugo's 
home, 1 1 8-1 19; Pere-Lachaise 
cemetery, 1 20 

Pere-Lachaise, famous cemetery 
of Paris, I 20 

Pompeii, the burned Italian pleas- 
ure citv, 44-51 • street of Nola, 
45 ; destroyed by Vesuvius, 
45.46 ; Professor Fiorelli's ex- 
cavations, 47 ; plan of Roman 



[176] 



Index 

houses, 48; mural decorations, St. Paul's basilica at Rome, 71 

49; the House of the Vettii, 49 ; Socotra, an island in the Indian 

the House of the Faun, 50 Ocean, 5 

Port Said, at Mediterranean end Suez Canal, 9- 14 ; old Arabian 

of Suez Canal, 10-11 • statue town of Suez, 9; passage by 

of De Lesseps, 10 steamer, 10-1 3 j canal still in- 

Rome, Capital of Italy, 52-72; complete, 10; Arab laborers 

rich in historical and art inter- inefficient, ii-lz- desert on 

est, 52; the modern city, 54; both sides, 12-13; large divi- 

the Pantheon, 54; the Forum, dends paid, 14 

55.56 ; the Capitoline Hill, 56 • Tintoretto, famous pictures in 
the Palatine Hill, 57; arch of Venice, 92 

Septimus Severus, 58; arch of Titian, Assumption of the Vir- 

Titus, 56 • St. Peter's, 59-61 ; gin, 92 

the Vatican, 61-64; the Bor- Vatican, the, home of the Popes, 

ghese Gallery, 65; Guido 62-65 ; gallery of sculpture, 62- 

Reni's Beatrice Cenci, 65; 63; the Sistine Chapel, 63; 

Fountain of Trevi, 65; the "The Last Judgment," 64; 

Colosseum, 66-68 ; the Appian Stanze of Raphael, 63-64; 

Way, 68; Baths of Caracalla, Raphael's "Transfiguration," 

68; the catacombs, 69 ; Ouo 64 

Vadis Church, 69- tomb of Venice, the unique city of Europe, 

Cecilia Metella, 70; the Cam- 84-92; gondolas and gondo- 

pagna, 70-71; basilica of St. Hers, 84-85 ; the Grand Canal, 

Paul's, 71 • graves of Keats and 84-85; hotels in old palaces, 

Shelley, 72 85- historical palaces on the 

Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Archi- Grand Canal, 86-87; Square 

tefture, 80 of St. Mark, 87-88; St. Mark's 

St. Mark's Cathedral, Venice, Cathedral, 88-89 ; the Doges' 

88-89 Palace, 90-91 ; feeding the 

St. Peter's of Rome, the greatest pigeons, 91; churches and art 

religious shrine in Christendom, collections, 92 

59-61 ; Michelangelo's work, Venus of Melos, in the Louvre, 

60-61; Canova's masterpieces, 108 

61 Veronese, Paul, celebrated pic- 

Salamis, scene of the destruction tures in Venice, 92 

of Persian fleet by the Greeks, Vesuvius, active volcano which 

19 overlooks Naples, 36; its de- 

Scylla and Charybdis, historical struction of Pompeii, 45-46 

rocks near Straits of Messina, 35 Villa d'Este, beautiful Italian 

St. Paul, lived as tent-maker at garden near Tivoli, 75 

Corinth, 19; preached on Hill Winged Victory of Samothrace 

of Mars, Athens, 30 in the Louvre, 108-109 



[ l 77] 



AND SO ENDS THE CRITIC IN THE OCCIDENT, CONTAINING 
THE IMPRESSIONS OF GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH ON THE 
LAST HALF OF HIS TRIP AROUND THE WORLD, PUB- 
LISHED IN BOOK FORM BY PAUL ELDER & COMPANY 
AND SEEN THROUGH THEIR TOMOYE PRESS BY JOHN 
SWART DURING THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER, MCMXIII, IN 
THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO 



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